SOUTH-EAST EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE Ideologies and Patterns of Democracy Vol. I • No. 3 July, August, September 2013 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 CONTENTS Editorial Gheorghe Lencan STOICA, Selami Ahmet SALGÜR, Ideology under the Analysts’ Scrutiny and Patterns of Democracy...........................................................................................3 Articles Lavinia STAN, Romanian Politics in 2012: Intra-Cabinet Coexistence and Political Instability........................................................................................................................................12 Dragoş DRAGOMAN, Post-Accession Backsliding: Non-ideological Populism and Democratic Setbacks in Romania..............................................................................................27 Antoine HEEMERYCK, The Democratic Domination in Romania: NGOs, Procedural Politics and Anti-communism....................................................................................................47 Gelu SABĕU, Democracy and the „Mystic” of the State.....................................................59 Florin GRECU, “National Renaissance”, “Ideologisation”, “Political Sacralisation” and the “Ideological Think-tank” under the New Regime and the First Single Party in the Political History of Romania.......................................................................................................77 Alexandru MATEI, The Romanian Office of Studies and Polls. A Survey from 1969 and Its Present Significations.............................................................................................................92 Jasmin MUJANOVIĆ, Princip, Valter, Pejić and the Raja: Elite Domination and Betrayal in Bosnia- Herzegovina.............................................................................................................106 Lejla BALIĆ, Midhat IZMIRLIJA, Consociation in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Practical Implementation of the Theoretical Principles.......................................................................121 Gustavo GOZZI, Democratization and Development in the Arab Countries of the Mediterranean Area....................................................................................................................135 Roxana OLTEANU, Citizenship and Demos. Is there a People of Europe? Perspectives on the Democratic Legitimacy of the European Union......................................................152 Ioana CRISTEA (DRĕGULIN), Antonio Gramsci’s Concept of Ideology....................165 Essays Michele PROSPERO, Croce e l’Ideologia Liberale..............................................................185 Sándor KARIKÓ, The Process of Democratisation and Social Equality, Inequality. The Old-New Challenge of Politics and Education.....................................................................191 Book Reviews Bogdan ŞTEFĕNESCU, Postcommunism. Postcolonialism. Siblings of Subalternity (Adriana Elena STOICAN)......................................................................................................198 Daniel ANDRU, Sorin BOCANCEA (coord.), Mass-media i democra ia în România postcomunistĖ, Ia i (Emanuel COPILA )........................................................201 Florin GRECU, Construcťia unui partid unic: Frontul Renaşterii Naťionale (Drago COSMESCU)..............................................................................................................................204 Mario TELÒ, Giulia SANDRI, Luca TOMINI (eds.), L’état de la démocratie en Italie (Aurelian GIUGĕL)..................................................................................................................206 1 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 Event Filip STANCIU, “Magic exists” or the Triumph of Cultural Diplomacy.........................209 Signals Florin-Ciprian MITREA...........................................................................................................211 Notes on Contributors...........................................................................................................215 2 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 EDITORIAL Ideology under the Analysts’ Scrutiny and Patterns of Democracy Gheorghe Lencan STOICA University of Bucharest Selami Ahmet SALGÜR University of South-East Europe Lumina Abstract: The authors seek out to investigate the concept of ideology from a philosophical perspective. This study attempts to answer the very difficult question whether one can talk about “ideologies’’ after the end of the Cold War. Starting from the sources of this concept and from the definition provided by its inventor, Antoine Louise Destutt de Tracy, that of “science of ideas”, the authors consider that, irrespective of the negative connotations associated with the concept in time, one should continue discussing it. Keywords: ideology, hegemony, diversity of ideologies, “totalitarian” ideologies. 1. INTRODUCTION How could someone believe that when living in the first decades of the 21st century it is no longer of topical interest to speak about ideologists or ideologies? The world is witnessing an era of great changes and transformations, society has become globalised, or downright “liquid”, to cite the words of Zygmunt Bauman. Democracy itself has turned into “post-democracy”, and capitalism is also undergoing endless changes and has entered the stage of “post-capitalism”. Therefore, how can one imagine there is still room for ideology? Let us remember for instance that only a few years after 1989-90 history of the world has changed to such an extent that nothing has remained as it was before. At that time, a political scientist of Japanese descent, and we have in mind Francis Fukuyama, stated after a sophisticated Hegelian argumentation that today’s world is only… liberal. Therefore, an ideology was however admitted, but it could be only a liberal one (more precisely a neoliberal one, we should say). Other ideas or other conceptions would have been pointless. Socialists or social democrats would have been prone to let themselves contaminated by social issues, social state and social rights, and consequently would have been too closely linked to “communism”. Yet something extremely important is too easily forgotten, namely the fact that for more than five decades between social democrats and communists there was a fierce confrontation. Even nowadays in Russia this phenomenon is felt as a genuine relic of those days. Otherwise how to explain the fact that in none of the elections organised after the fall of the USSR social democrats never exceeded the threshold of 0.5%? However, in 3 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 Western Europe ideological diversity asserted itself altogether only half a decade after the ’89-’90 revolutions. In Great Britain, but also in France or in unified Germany, as well as in Spain, Italy, Poland, Greece or Portugal, the socialists of democracy or social democrats reached the power through free and democratic elections. Moreover, in 1994, in Italy, Norberto Nobbio published a famous book entitled Left and Right, which was highly successful with its huge circulation of more than 200,000 copies printed, all the more since it is a thoroughly ideological work. From a political viewpoint, out of all the UE member states, only in two of them left-wing or centre left-wing parties were not in power in the early 2000s. At that time, the EU counted 12 member states (the same number as that of the stars on the blue EU flag). What has happened since then? What has become of Fukuyama’s theory? Does ideology or ideologists belong to the past? In this article, we attempt to shed some light on such a controversial issue. It is widely acknowledged that the term of ideology first appeared in Napoleonic France, in 1796, in the context of the turmoil and aftermath of the French Revolution, as a product of the Enlightenment. Destutt de Tracy is among the first thinkers who launched this term, alongside Volney and Cabanis, and its meaning referred to knowledge as a sort of science, being therefore “a science of the ideas”. In the context of that age, the meaning of this term was rather ambiguous, more often than not ideology having also a pejorative connotation which was plainly asserted as such by Napoleon Bonaparte. Since the very beginning, ideology signified a complex of concepts explaining the world from the perspective of a social group’s interests. The acquired knowledge had an exhaustive character, since, according to the widespread thesis of that age, “science is our religion”. Hence the disputable interpretations which ensued, as totalising explanations could offer but a specious account of reality, yet a mobilising and justifying one for a social group or another. In the same period, the term of progress also asserts itself, and will often share, especially in the Marxist vision, in substantiating the concept of ideology. Due to this fact and in spite of its negative connotation, for numerous masses of people, particularly in the 20th century, ideology constituted an important tool through which people could assert their identity and awareness, and take political action. Actually, in Marx’s and Engels’ vision, the significance of ideology results clearly from their book, The German Ideology, published in the ‘30s of the last century, where the authors identify ideology with false consciousness. However, there is also a scientific ideology, which is none other than that ideology which acts in favour of progress, therefore to the benefit of those who work. In this respect, Marxism regards ideology as a necessary process, through which a ruling class presents its own interests as universal interests, and consequently also expresses its own ideas as the only rational and universal ones. Starting from such theses, institutional “objectifications” with a total character can sometimes be reached by dint of exaggerations and absolutisations, aspect which was ended in 1989. Yet certain critical valences and explanatory dimensions remain valid even nowadays, firmly denying today any magnification of the Stalinist era and communist “practice”. A special analysis and approach of ideology can be traced in Gramsci’s work, where the author depicts the close relation between social reality, ideological superstructure and economic superstructure. According to Gramsci, ideology is that place where “people organise themselves, create the ground where they move, 4 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 acquire the consciousness of their position, and fight, etc.”1 The importance of ideologies, argues Gramsci, resides in the fact that it “organises” and “activates” the masses, sometimes the latter having a similar “influence” to the very “material forces”. However, in a confrontation with Buharin, Gramsci declares that the role of ideologies is much more important. Hence the particular significance Gramsci attaches to the ideological and institutional superstructure. Consequently, the fight to win the hegemony is something more important than a mere “battle of ideas”. These ideas formulated in Prison Notebooks were written before Marx’s and Engels’ The German Ideology was published, therefore Gramsci ignored the content this book. 2. ESSENCE AND CONTENT OF IDEOLOGIES: KNOWLEDGE AND MOBILISATION Much has been said and written about ideologies over time, in different periods of humankind’s history, therefore it is worthwhile examining various aspects such as the essence, functions and content of ideologies. First of all, we should see what we understand today by ideology. There are many opinions and definitions regarding the content and the significance of ideologies. According to Ferruccio Rossi Landi2, there is a multitude of definitions of ideology, he himself referring to no less than eleven conceptions or visions which might help us, each one in its turn, clarify this concept. Such conceptions indicate the angle from whose perspective is shaped the content aiming at the system of ideas which justifies a viewpoint or another. However, in its turn, the respective system of ideas has an inner logic, and is formally characterised by noncontradiction and completeness. But let us see the eleven visions envisaged by Rossi Landi: a) mythology and folklore; b) illusion and self-delusion; c) common sense; d) falsehood and obscurantism; e) pride and self-conscious deceit; f) false consciousness in general; g) philosophy; h) vision of the world (Weltanschauung); i) intuition about the world; j) system of behaviours; k) feelings.3 The dominant traits detected by Rossi Landi define only too well even nowadays’ diversity of ideologies. Such a standpoint explains quite clearly the content of ideologies, as well as the form they take even today. There is a fierce confrontation between them in the wake of which they assert not only their right to exist, but also one of them proclaims itself the sole genuine and just ideology. Such is the case of religious, scientific, neoliberal, and neoconservative ideologies, all manifesting themselves far and wide at the present time. However, if we refer, as Landi did, to the respective traits, we can infer that for the function of ideology it is essential to summarise these three substantial aspects without which they would be unconceivable: 1) ideology as “false consciousness:”; 2) as “vision” of the world (Weltanschauung) and 3) as “philosophy”. That is the reason why philosophical debates “lapse” or “grow” into ideological confrontations, being sometimes present even in the case of “technocratic” or “analytical” philosophies, etc. 1 2 3 Antonio GRAMSCI, Quaderni del carcere, Editioni Einaudi, Torino, 1975, pp. 868-869. Ferruccio ROSSI LANDI, Ideologia, IDEDI, Milano, 1978, p. 16. Umberto CERRONI, Cultura della democrazia, Metis, Chieti, 1991, p. 173. 5 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 There are sometimes situations which seem today unconceivable when certain “totalitarian” ideologies engendered catastrophic consequences – such being the case of Nazism, fascism, and Stalinist communism. They exacerbated certain “truths”, starting from certain “anthropological” errors (Nazism and fascism), or in the case of Stalinism by exaggerations such as “Marxist philosophy is true because it is just”, etc. In modern or even post-modern days, ideological debates have their starting point in “more subtle”, “more complex” confrontations, and in certain cases even in “axiological neutralities”. The impressive profusion of ideologies is a consequence of the changes occurred in the social or historical reality, of mutations and differentiations, accelerations and conflicts assailing contemporary man. Ideology offers him an answer to all these problems, answer which might seem at times disagreeable, demobilising or orienting him, stimulating and even justifying his actions. As regards the innumerable debates about “ideologies”, thought-provoking seems Karl Mannheim’s conception, who published in 1929 a book entitled Ideology and Utopia, a work which stirred vivid debates, thus simulating the involvement of lots of sociologists and political scientists such as R.K. Merton, P. Sorokin, T. Parsons, Rokeach, J. Floud, E. Shils, etc. They concurred, for instance, that the whole world of ideas is a product of collective life or at least of part of it, admitted that there are no “perennial values”, and tried altogether to demonstrate that the very fundamental principles of ethics, or certain classical concepts such as duty, sin, happiness, etc. have been affected (and can still be any time affected), their meaning being corrupted, and even their significance being at times modified according to their new relation with society and the new situational changes. Karl Mannheim further argues that ideologies can be total or specific. For example specific ideologies can be analysed psychologically and correspond to certain contradictions which are more or less in tune with a real situation, representing the real knowledge of the interests of those who support them. Total ideologies, whose analysis is possible with epistemological and social researches, are a form of disposition and orientation of the thought deriving from a social and historical structure. On the other hand, especially today, the ever broader practice of having frequently recourse to science, technique and computers in order to solve social, economic and political issues led according to certain analysts to the decline and death of ideologies. 6 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 3. ARE WE REALLY WITNESSING TODAY THE END OF IDEOLOGIES? The thesis of the exhaustion or even the end or collapse of the role and functions of ideologies has long since been circulated. One of the first contestants was the French conservative philosopher Raymond Aron, whose ideas were very popular about sixty years ago. At the same time, more than thirty years ago, the ex-president of the United States, quite appreciated in his days, and we refer certainly to Ronald Reagan, used to think of himself as being the most ideological president. Communism, said Reagan, is a “genuine” realm of evil, assertion which had a thunderbolt effect on the old administrative and dogmatic system of Eastern Europe. But Aron’s thesis was promoted on a larger scale in Milan, during a symposium held under the slogan “The Future of Liberty”. Following the path put forward by Aron, the points at issue were discussed by political scientists and sociologists such as C. W. Mills, D.H. Wrong, H. D. Aiken, J. Meynaud, I. L. Horowitz, J. LaPalombara, M. Harrington, etc. In the aftermath of the 1968 student strikes in Paris, and previously mainly the Frankfurt School (with its paramount representatives H. Marcuse, Erich Fromm, T. W. Adorno or M. Horkheimer) fiercely criticise those ideologies perceived as alienating and promoting consumerist and wasteful societies. But “the end of ideologies” almost always had in view the disappearance of those opposing ideologies which were duelling with the ideology that was trying to dominate the one it confronted in a life and death battle. In fact, “the end of ideology” begins precisely when Marx’s philosophy comes to the fore, by proclaiming German classical philosophy as being based on “false conscience”, and since then philosophy has manifested itself as a sort of corsi e ricorsi, and has almost without fail resurrected from its own ashes. A person who chooses a particular ideology should actually be aware that he/she makes a reassuring choice (i.e. it is a sort of security), capable of soothing his/her multifaceted frustrations. It is a well-known fact that ideological thought is made up of a series of structuring elements within relationships, holistically conditioning each other and presenting itself as a whole. That is why when an ideology subsides, for the individual who adopted it everything breaks apart. Moreover, the winner’s illusion opens up a brand new world before him. Today’s radical Islamists live through their terrorist actions this kind of reassuring delusion. Consequently, in spite of its assuring form, in certain cases the ideological edifice looks like a “brutal” action, and a sort of ode to the idea of causality which can be traced back to Napoleon’s age. An “ideologist” (a supporter of the science of ideas), Laplace, asked by the emperor “But where is God in all this?”, answered “Sire, I had no need of that hypothesis”. Things looked the same way eighty years ago, in the Stalinist era, when the diamat, that is dialectical materialism, used to dictate and decide the fate of genetics and cybernetics. This sort of ideologies is no longer viable nowadays, being outright fruitless. Yet last century’s outstanding ideological platforms are still worldwide present, though in their dispute the tension reaches the climax. As above stated, in the wake of the ’90 and ’91 events, Fukuyama believed that liberalism had an undisputable perenniality (exacerbating a “model” of society), a concrete form of social organisation. However, at the same time another thinker can object that liberal ideas “are in fact a huge ideological castle, justifying subjective options”. 7 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 The current “end of ideologies”, stated Professor Umberto Cerroni in the early ‘90s of the last century, meant, on the one hand, the collapse of “the reflection on objects without knowing them, and, on the other hand, it was a consequence of the general progress of science in a very complex world in which the individual is warned that the world can only be known by dint of uninterrupted efforts based solely on investigation and (scientific) analysis.1 Therefore it is superfluous to overbid in a sense or another. And in defiance of the prevailingly negative meaning assigned to the term and concept of ideology, thanks to it, in the 20th century large masses of people found a raison d’être and justified their actions with a view to reaching a great ideal. It is only in this way that in the last century ideology helped “democracy” to assert itself as a model, a pattern, which prevailed in almost three quarters of our planet. 4. IDEOLOGY AND PATTERNS OF DEMOCRACY In the early ’90 the famous professor of political science who for more than half a century analysed and scrutinised democracy, and we have in mind professor Giovanni Sartori, posited that the democratic model and mainly “market economy” make their way in the four corners of the world. It is only in the Arab world that democracy has not yet become a prevailing institution. However, in 2011 the world became acquainted with the outstanding event known under the name of “Arab Spring”. President Obama was considered as an efficient incentive in determining this sort of process. In his turn, the ex-president of USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev, congratulated Obama declaring that the respective process is but a continuation of what he had initiated thirty years ago, process known as the perestroika. Today things seem no longer as enthusiastic as more than two years ago. In Egypt, but chiefly in Syria, the process undergoes not only a stagnation, but we witness also dangerous involutions. In China neither, nor in Asia in general, the way things go leaves no room for optimism, and sometimes the impressive economic growths occur precisely in those places where authoritarianism seems to have the upper hand. Such is the case for instance of China, but also of other Asiatic countries, and most poignantly of Russia. Was Professor Sartori right once more? – we may ask ourselves. In any case, the explanation is to be found again in the sphere of ideologies, and from their confrontation one “model” or another wins and comes to the fore. Therefore we may even infer that ideology is the pattern of democracies. Who else but ideologies, even nowadays, can settle a dispute and stimulate debates whose role is to draw people’s attention on one point of view or another. To keep on advocating that ideologies are worthless is obviously paradoxically in a world in which “religion returns in the political space with an unconceivable vigour in the middle of the last century”.2 People want to believe in something, “to build (and live in) communities based on moral norms and values”, concludes our author. The world of democracy is finally founded on a choice within a political framework. A deeply rooted false belief still persists, namely that politics is a practical matter. A thoroughgoing analysis developed and enriched by great political philosophers and thinkers reveals that “a good practice is a good theory”. 1 2 Ibidem, p. 176. Mihaela MIROIU (coord.), Ideologii politice, Polirom, Ia i, 2012, pp. 26-27. 8 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 And it is precisely to reach such a target that philosophy restlessly invites us, with its pursuit of ethics and aesthetics, and not ultimately of ideology. And philosophy, political thought and particularly ideology have been struggling to pave the way for the democratic model. It is ideology itself that has offered us “patterns”, a profusion of patterns, “Patterns of Democracy”, as Arend Lijphart would say. 5. CONCLUSIONS In our argument, we have attempted to advance new ideas and theories, some of them resumed and reinterpreted in the novel circumstances emerged after the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. This thematic issue of our journal entitled Ideologies and Patterns of Democracy aims to provide a new framework for the discussion of these ideas today. The editors of this issue have attempted to cover as many aspects of the suggested theme as possible. Therefore, from a conceptual perspective, the issue has been divided into two parts. The first part contains two sections. Here, Lavinia Stan, Drago Dragoman and Antoine Heemeryck present analyses of the contemporary Romanian society. In the second section, Gelu SabĖu, Florin Grecu and Alexandru Matei present topics of analysis from the period of the two world wars and the communist period. SabĖu’s and Grecu’s contributions present a transversal image of the main ideas and concepts that made up the theoretical framework of the interwar period. Alexandru Matei’s article offers a perspective on the mechanisms of communist propaganda meant to influence the masses by audio-visual media. The second part of this issue contains presentations of regional, theoretical and international topics. It is divided into three sections. The first section contains two articles signed by Jasmin Mujanović, Balić Lejla and Izmirlija Midhat and they deal with the topic of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The second section includes the articles of Gustavo Gozzi and Roxana Olteanu; the authors discuss the process undergone by islamic countries from the “Southern shore” of the Mediterranean Sea on their way to democracy and the EU’s evolution in its 60 years of existence. In the third section that ends this issue, Ioana Cristea DrĖgulin and Michele Prospero publish two theoretical articles that foreground the contributions of two great Italian thinkers of the previous century – Antonio Gramsci and Benedetto Croce – and Sándor Karikó offers us an analysis of the concept of social equality. The series of articles is opened by Lavinia Stan. Starting from the chronological criterion, the author aims to present an overall image of the most important political events in the country in 2012. The author has analysed the relation between the chosen president and the government, that share, according to the Constituion, responsibilities and competences that often overlap and the impact of the Constitutional Court’s involvement in deciding the fate of political actors in conflict. Drago Dragoman’s article discusses the role of the elites in the democratic transformation of the Romanian society after Romania’s joining the EU. The main topic of the article is that after winning the elections, the political elites tend to control the political system by attempting to shape institutional realities according to their own will, in order to consolidate their own power. Antoine Heemeryck makes a descriptive presentation of the point of views supported by 9 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 representative NGOs that promote the contemporary societies’ efforts for democratisation and their articulations in the social and political environments. Gelu SabĖu’s article analyses the Romanian interwar debates between Constantin Stere and Petre Pandrea. The topic discussed by them is the model of modernisation that Romania was supposed to adopt. This study is relevant in that it highlights the two great paradigms that started from the ideas of the 1848 promoted after the 1848 Revolution and those presented by the Junimea journalists starting from the sixth decade of the 19th century. These are two important options for modernisation: the first promoted the introduction of Western models of civilisation, to be found in Stere’s work, while the second reflected the local ideas that supported localism and organicism, as in Pandrea’s thought. The article published by Florin Gecu is a natural continuation of the study presented by Gelu SabĖu. The author explains how local ideas of organicist orientation were put into practice, after the institution of the authoritarian monarchic regime after 27 February 1938. The juridical concepts, the economic, political and social regulations were promoted via propaganda in order to introduce an ideological monopoly. Alexandru Matei’s article presents an image of the role of ideology in the so-called democratisation of the communist state. The study presents the activity of the Office of Studies and Polls of the Romanian Radiotelevision during communism, which worked directly with the institutions of official propaganda. The author’s conclusion is that the aim of communist propaganda to influence the masses by means of state television and radio was a failure. Their popularity and visibility in the ’70 of the previous century was generated by entertainment TV shows and not by ideological shows. Jasmin Mujanović’s article presents a historical analysis of the tensions between popular mobilisation and project of state consolidation initiated by the dominant elites from Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH), from the 19th century till present. Balić Lejla and Izmirlija Midhat present the social reality of Bosnia-Herzegovina based on minimal consent after the end of the armed conflict. The authors remark that one’s belonging to an ethnic group maintains social division and prevents a real democratisation of the political regime. In his article, Gustavo Gozzi presents the process of Europenisation undergone by the countries from the “Southern shore” of the Mediterranean, the difficult relation between Islam and democracy as well as possible mechanisms that the Arab world might take over for adopting democratic regimes as a result of the Jasmine Revolution of Tunis. Roxana Olteanu makes a review of the period of over 60 years of EU existence, analysing topics such as: the legitimacy of the European construction, federalism, intergovernmentalism, European identity at national level, etc. Ioana Cristea DrĖgulin presents a study about Antonio Gramsci’s concept of ideology. The importance of this contribution is given by the theoretical value of the analysis and the novelty it brings into the Romanian space of ideas. Antonio Gramsci, one of the most important Italian theoreticians of the 20th century, did not benefit from the attention of the Romanian specialists in the decades after 1989. In the first part of the study, the author presents the theoretical references of the concept of ideology and the second part of the study is dedicated to the analysis of key elements of Gramsci’s notion of ideology. In his article, Michele Prospero analyses fundamental elements of the Italian liberalism in the Risorgimento period. The author notices that the lack of a real European culture gave Italian liberalism a conservative orientation. According to the 10 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 author, Benedetto Croce is the theoretician who best explained the impact of Italian liberalism upon individuals, society and the state, which led to a clear separation between individuals and the state. Sándor Karikó ends this issue dedicated to Ideologies and Patterns of Democracy with an article on “social equality”. Starting from the idea that “social equality” is a primary and precious concept, the author suggests that it can be maintained by the promotion of democratic values through education. Bibliography BERTI, Enrico, CAMPANINI, Giorgio, Dizionario delle idee politiche, AVE, Roma, 1993. CERRONI, Umberto, Cultura della democrazia, Metis, Chieti, 1991. GRAMSCI, Antonio, Quaderni del carcere, Editioni Einaudi, Torino, 1975. MIROIU, Mihaela (coord.), Ideologii politice, Polirom, Ia i, 2012. ROSSI LANDI, Ferruccio, Ideologia, IDEDI, Milano, 1978. 11 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 ARTICLES Romanian Politics in 2012: Intra-Cabinet Coexistence and Political Instability Lavinia STAN “St. Francis Xavier” University Abstract: By all standards, 2012 was a very busy political year for Romania, a country that, during the span of several months changed four different governments, organized local and parliamentary elections, and saw its president being suspended and then reinstated as a result of a controversial popular referendum. This article uses the framework of intra-cabinet coexistence in an effort to provide a chronological overview of the most important political events of 2012. The focus is on the relationship between the elected president and the cabinet, which share overlapping responsibilities and competencies, but also on the involvement of the Constitutional Court in deciding the fate of key political actors. Keywords: elections, semi-parliamentary systems, referendum, suspension of president, intra-cabinet relations, cohabitation. 1. INTRODUCTION The year 2012 was by far the busiest for Romania, registering political developments leading to radical changes in the composition and activity of the government, its relationship with civil society, and the relative balance of forces between left-wing and right-wing parties. This article provides a chronological scorecard of the main political events that unfolded in 2012, with an eye on the intra-executive coexistence between the president and successive prime ministers, and the way different political events and actors are connected to each other. 2. SEMI-PRESIDENTIALISM AS INTRA-EXECUTIVE COEXISTENCE The Romanian semi-presidential “intra-executive coexistence” allows a directly elected president to coexist with an elected prime minister.1 In the presidentparliamentary systems found in Russia (since 1993) and Ukraine the directly elected president enjoys the constitutional prerogative to appoint and dismiss cabinet members, 1 Oleh PROTSYK, “Intra-Executive Competition between President and Prime Minister: Patterns of Institutional Conflict and Cooperation under Semi-Presidentialism”, Political Studies, Vol. 54, No. 2, 2006, pp. 219-244. 12 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 but in the Romanian premier-presidential system the president can nominate, not dismiss, the prime minister.1 According to the Constitution, the president “shall designate a candidate to the office of Prime Minister and appoint the Government on the basis of the vote of confidence of Parliament” (Article 85).2 Intra-executive coexistence is prone to conflict, due to the rivalry between the two executive members who seek the cabinet’s compliance with their distinct political objectives. Such conflict can divide the executive by turning the president against a cabinet (and prime minister) supported by parliament or pit a united cabinet against parliament.3 Conflict stems from differences in the personalities and ideological positions of the president and the prime minister, the novel character of this institutional design in Eastern Europe, the party system configuration and development, the impact of divergent electoral cycles, the variations in presidential and prime ministerial control over the cabinet, the constitutional ambiguity about the responsibilities assigned to the president and the prime minister, or a combination of these factors.4 The Romanian semi-presidentialism, which unclearly divides the responsibilities of the president and the prime minister, led to insignificant intra-executive conflict as long as presidential and parliamentary elections were organized concurrently, government legislators rejected no-confidence motions against the cabinet, and the presidents and the prime ministers represented the same party coalition and supported similar policy agendas. The first serious intra-executive conflict appeared in 2007, when Prime Minister CĖlin Popescu TĖriceanu’s Liberals and the opposition Social Democrats (PSD) and Conservatives suspended Democrat Liberal (PDL) President Traian BĖsescu. That conflict was rooted in personality differences between TĖriceanu and BĖsescu, and new opportunities and incentives that presented themselves to the prime minister. These factors were also at work in 2012, being augmented by the ideological differences between the centre-right PDL president and the centre-left PSD prime minister and the divergent electoral cycles to which the president and the cabinet responded. 3. STREET PROTESTS IN JANUARY By January 2012 there were marked differences in the way the PDL and the population interpreted the government’s track record. The cabinet insisted that it had sacrificed its popularity for the sake of helping Romania to avert Greece’s fate by launching in 2010 unpopular, yet needed, austerity measures that had cut the wages of public servants, reduced their benefits, and banned new hires in the public sector. The 1 Matthew SHUGART and John M. CAREY, Presidents and Assemblies: Constitutional Design and Electoral Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1992; and Steve ROPER, “Are All Semipresidential Regimes the Same? A Comparison of Premier-Presidential Regimes”, Comparative Politics, Vol. 34, No. 3, 2002, pp. 253–276. 2 Constitution of Romania (2003), http://www.cdep.ro/pls/dic/site.page?den=act2_2&par1=3#t3c2s0a85 (accessed May 9, 2013). 3 Oleh PROTSYK, Intra-Executive Competition between President and Prime Minister… cit., pp. 221-222. 4 Raymond TARAS (ed.), Post-Communist Presidents, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1997; Robert ELGIE, “The Classification of Democratic Regime Types”, European Journal of Political Research, Vol. 33, No. 2, 1998, pp. 219–233; Matthew SHUGART, “The Electoral Cycle and Institutional Sources of Divided Presidential Government”, American Political Science Review, Vol. 89, No. 2, 1995, pp. 327–343; and Thomas BAYLIS, “Presidents versus Prime Ministers: Shaping the Executive Authority in Eastern Europe”, World Politics, Vol. 48, No. 3, 1996, pp. 297–323. 13 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 cabinet further praised its anticorruption program, which led to the investigation of many politicians, corrupt customs and police officers, and judges. In contrast, many citizens felt that the cabinet staved off the effects of the global financial crisis by unfairly allowing them to shoulder the austerity program, while protecting the interests of powerful politicians and businessmen. Prime Minister Emil Boc’s claim that budget cuts were needed to reduce the deficit contrasted with the unnecessary projects funded by his government. The opposition blamed the cabinet for making 700,000 people lose their jobs and 100,000 firms close down, and noted that the anticorruption drive targeted mainly opposition politicians.1 Boc’s popularity further decreased after the cabinet reduced the input of labour unions in collective bargaining; changed local government transfers; by-passed parliament by issuing emergency ordinances and assuming responsibility for laws; purged civil servants supporting other parties; and promoted BĖsescu’s friends to top state positions.2 The popular protests were sparked by the unexpected resignation of Dr. Raed Arafat, an undersecretary of the Ministry of Health, at the pressure of President BĖsescu. The resignation was followed by popular protests in support of Arafat, first in Târgu Mure and then throughout the country. On January 13 protests reached Bucharest, forcing the cabinet to withdraw the bill and rehire Arafat. Street demonstrations continued despite the freezing cold, police brutality, and the disparaging comments of PDL leaders, who termed protesters as hooligans manipulated by the opposition. On January 23 Boc tried to pacify protesters by providing tax relief, and dismissing Minister of Foreign Affairs Teodor Baconschi for offending the protesters. These concessions were insufficient. The cabinet was unseated on February 6. The protests had a significantly larger political impact than initially anticipated. The government’s reaction to the protests, which ranged from ignoring and lambasting them to violently cracking them down, proved that Boc and the PDL leaders did not consider open dialogue as a key to their political survival, as long as President BĖsescu supported them by turning down all government formulas that excluded the PDL. BĖsescu’s protection weakened democratic mechanisms in the PDL and insulated the party from the electorate.3 The protesters’ refusal to listen to opposition leaders who sought to turn the social unrest to their advantage signalled their dissatisfaction with all the parties that had ruled the country since 1989. This dejection helped the Popular Party of Dan Diaconescu (PPDD) come third in the summer election after the Social Liberal Union (USL, which united the PSD, the Liberals and the Conservatives) and the PDL. The protests also showed that President BĖsescu had become a liability for the PDL, which supported his presidential bid in 2004 and 2009. By 2012 BĖsescu’s unceremonious, direct way of approaching people and topics was seen as an unnecessary meddling in areas of life where the president had no competencies. The protests suggested that BĖsescu no longer had the popularity needed to successfully placate a claim for his suspension. 1 Motiune de cenzura. 11 impotriva Romaniei! (October 6, 2009), http://www.cdep.ro/motiuni/2009/1369.pdf (accessed January 17, 2013). 2 Lavinia STAN and RĖzvan ZAHARIA, “Romania”, European Journal of Political Research, Vol. 50, No. 7, 2011, pp. 1105-1114, and Laura STEFAN and Sorin IONITA, “Romania”, in Nation in Transit 2012. Democratization from Central Europe to Eurasia, ed. Sylvana HABDANK-KOLACZKOWSKA, Katherin MACHALEK and Christopher WALKER, Rowman and Littlefield, New York, 2012, pp. 431-450. 3 Mihail CHIRU and Sergiu GHERGHINA, “Keeping the Doors Close: Leadership Selection in PostCommunist Romania”, East European Politics and Societies, Vol. 26, No. 3, 2011, pp. 510-537. 14 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 4. THE UNGUREANU CABINET Boc’s decision to renounce the premiership, but not the PDL leadership, and BĖsescu’s appointment of a non-PDL politician as prime minister weakened the PDL and the new cabinet. These decisions placed the PDL in the unenviable position of having to support a cabinet whose leader was answerable to BĖsescu and not to the party, who had few friends among party members, and who was younger and less experienced than many PDL leaders that eyed the premiership. By emphasizing the need for leadership continuity, not for change, the PDL showed unwillingness to assume Boc’s mistakes in governance, communication strategy, and relations with civil society. The new Prime Minister Mihai RĖzvan Ungureanu, a former PNL member who served as head of the External Information Service (heir to the foreign espionage branch of the Securitate) in 2007-2012, had no party levers at his disposal. By presenting Ungureanu as the PDL candidate for the 2014 presidential elections without consulting the party, the president fuelled resentment from the PDL leaders and misled Ungureanu into thinking that BĖsescu alone could guarantee his acceptance as PDL leader. His position as cabinet head was delicate, because his ministers were still nominated by the PDL and were more loyal to Boc than to him; hence he could rely on no other party to implement his program, and was largely a prisoner of the escalating demands of legislators. It soon became clear how precarious Ungureanu’s position was. Ungureanu hoped that few would blame him for lacking the time to implement reforms and that his short mandate would boost his presidential credentials. But he miscalculated, and his short premiership damaged his chances to become BĖsescu’s successor. Ungureanu yielded to the demands of PDL local leaders for preferential handouts that could boost their chances for re-election and engaged in questionable spending patterns. First, he disbursed 200 million USD of the Government’s Special Reserve Fund to mayors (of whom 95 percent were PDL members).1 The allocation ignored local needs, disregarded the legal use of these funds (meant to redress natural calamities), and included no checks on the use of the money. Second, Ungureanu ran a spendthrift executive that in 78 days spent USD 400,000 for protocol alone.2 Both scandals showed that Ungureanu was unable to reduce the waste of government funds by the ruling party, and make government expenditures transparent. They reinforced the idea that the PDL was short on money for projects of public interest and public servants’ wages, but generous with its clients. Days after Ungureanu disbursed the reserve funds the opposition tabled a noconfidence motion adopted by Parliament on April 27, after several PDL legislators crossed the floor.3 While other prime ministers faced on average a motion a year, Boc faced twice as many. A motion unseated Boc on October 13, 2009, and Ungureanu “HotĖrare 255 din 3 aprilie 2012 privind alocarea unei sume din Fondul de rezervĖ bugetarĖ la dispoziťia Guvernului, prevĖzut în bugetul de stat pe anul 2012, pentru unele unitĖťi administrativ-teritoriale”, Monitorul Oficial al României (April 6, 2012). 2 Daniela BARAGAN, “Over RON 1 million spent by Ungureanu government on protocol”, Nine O’Clock (September 18, 2012). 3 Moťiune de cenzură. Opriťi Guvernul şantajabil! (April 18, 2012), http://www.cdep.ro/motiuni/2012/1468.pdf (accessed January 11, 2013). 1 15 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 suffered the same fate on April 27, 2012. While in 2009 Boc easily formed another PDL cabinet after the motion passed, in 2012 the party leadership withdrew support from Ungureanu and nominated no other prime minister, instead permitting the opposition to nominate Ponta as prime minister. The PDL might have given up the right to form the cabinet in the hope of regaining popular support before elections. Polls credited the PDL with only 19 percent support rate, half the USL rate.1 5. THE FIRST PONTA CABINET Ponta’s nomination inaugurated an uneasy coexistence between the centre-right president and the centre-left cabinet. The president has foreign policy and defence powers that overlap with the cabinet’s. When the president and the prime minister represent the same coalition, their attributions are divided by gentlemen’s agreements, but such an agreement was unworkable in 2012, given BĖsescu’s desire to act as a president-player (presedinte-jucator), although he had the support of only a minority of legislators, and the USL’s insistence to speak on behalf of the people, though the president, not the legislators, was elected by a wider electorate. The USL found it hard to identify worthy ministers. Questions regarding the integrity of its members were raised after the cabinet’s creation. In response, the cabinet underwent 12 changes, making it the least stable post-communist government. Ponta and the USL had no clear governmental agenda, but this oversight had little effect on their popularity. First, few voters expected Ponta to implement a serious program in the months leading to elections. Second, the cabinet addressed the major grievance of public servants and retired people, who formed its social base: partial restoration of the wages and benefits cut by the PDL. Third, the USL blamed President BĖsescu for everything that went wrong in the country, though the president’s attributions were related to foreign policy and defence only. Given the strong anti-BĖsescu feelings of many voters, this multipronged strategy allowed the USL to retain public confidence despite promoting politicians with dubious records to top state positions, lacking a concrete economic strategy, and engaging in controversial or unconstitutional political moves. 6. THE LOCAL ELECTIONS The campaign centred on the personality of the candidates, who offered free food, drinks and entertainment in exchange of votes. Of the 10 million votes for mayors, the USL gathered 5.2 million, the PDL 1.5 million, the PPDD 0.72 million, and the UDMR 0.42 million. Similar results were registered for local/county councillors, and county council presidents. The USL won 64 percent of mayor positions, 52 percent of local/county councillors, and 88 percent of county presidents. It gained most mayor positions in major towns, including Bucharest.2 1 2 “CSOP poll: Ungureanu wins points in voter confidence index”, Nine O’Clock (April 22, 2012). Alegeri locale 2012. Situația voturilor valabil exprimate pe partide, Biroul Electoral Central, Bucharest, 2012. 16 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 The USL watered the campaign well, given the ideological and policy differences among its partners. Constituted in 2011, the union brought together an inter-war ‘historical party’ (PNL) revived in 1989 and formations that harboured communist officials and secret agents who had persecuted the PNL during the communism. The PSD and the PNL were rivals until 2010, when they understood that only together could they muster sufficient electoral support to compel BĖsescu to allow them to form the government, if scoring better than the PDL. In 2008 and 2009 BĖsescu turned down cabinet proposals not coming from the PDL, in virtue of the presidential constitutional prerogative to designate the prime minister (Article 103). The campaign was marked by the PDL’s inability to gauge the full extent of its free-fall. Instead of supporting candidates untainted by corruption, the PDL promoted corrupt politicians. Amateurism and improvisation characterized its campaign, which blamed its defeat on other parties and shunned honest self-introspection. Emil Boc became mayor of Cluj but this victory failed to restore his credibility within the PDL. On June 30, Vasile Blaga replaced Boc as party leader, but the party’s rebuilding was derailed by President BĖsescu’s suspension. The election’s unexpected winner was the PPDD of Dan Diaconescu, the obscure owner of Oglinda Television (OTV), Romania’s trashiest television station. A populist formation with a strong anti-establishment flavour and a political platform devoid of feasible policy proposals, the PPDD built its campaign on criticizing all other parties and accusing them of incompetence and hypocrisy, because their criticism of each other was hiding from public view the extensive cross-party networks of corruption and nepotism that united their members. Ironically, most PPDD candidates were former PNL, PSD and PDL leaders tainted by corruption allegations, whose political goals and practices resembled those of the parties they criticized. 7. PRESIDENT BASESCU’S SUSPENSION AND COMEBACK It is uncertain when the USL decided to suspend the president. For BĖsescu, the decision was taken at the time the Ponta cabinet was appointed, and was advocated by Conservative leader Dan Voiculescu and PNL leader Crin Antonescu. Whereas Antonescu was impatient to try his hand at playing the president, Voiculescu allegedly wanted revenge for the president’s return to Cotroceni in 2007, which followed BĖsescu’s first suspension.1 The 2012 suspension therefore had less to do with Basescu’s performance as president and PDL éminence grise and more with a personal vendetta waged by oligarchic politicians eager to turn attention away from their own incompetence and corruption. It allegedly amounted to a ‘coup d’état’, a ‘renunciation of democratic principles’, a ‘return to totalitarianism’, an ‘apocalypse’ perpetrated by ‘rhinoceros’ bent on turning Romania into a ‘prison camp’, or a sign of ‘political paranoia’.2 According to BĖsescu’s critics, the suspension was called for by the president’s divide et impera strategy, and failure to mediate between the government and Lucian MIHU, “Interviu cu Traian BĖsescu: USL pregĖteşte şi a treia suspendare”, România Liberă (July 24, 2012). 2 See, among others, Dragoş ALIGICA, “Legitimitatea regimului statal oligarhic: tema cheie a momentului”, 22 (July 10-19, 2012). 1 17 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 the opposition, as the constitution required. Critics recalled his refusal to install governments not backed by the PDL, willingness to publicly announce the austerity measures in 2010, though presidential prerogatives do not extend to the economy, and meddling in the affairs of the judiciary by phoning prosecutors and asking about the fate of selected cases or by publicly threatening his rivals with being placed under investigation, threats that should have been in vain if the judiciary were really independent.1 Two events convinced the USL to launch the suspension procedure. First, on June 18 Nature identified Ponta’s doctoral thesis as the product of plagiarism.2 Suspecting that the allegations originated in the pro-BĖsescu camp, the president’s supporters launched a concerted campaign to discredit Ponta in the hope of boosting the PDL’s popularity as a result. Second, on June 20 NĖstase was sentenced to two years in prison for corruption. An influential PSD leader who fostered Ponta’s political aspirations and supervised his controversial thesis, NĖstase remains the highest-ranking politician ever convicted for corruption in Romania. Denounced as a political vendetta, his demise was a direct blow to the legitimacy of Ponta’s party. By July 1 the USL had made up its mind – BĖsescu had to leave before the end of his mandate, not because he “committed grave acts infringing on constitutional provisions” (Article 95 of the Constitution), but because he commanded enough support within the judiciary, civil society, and the international community to hamper the USL’s domination of the cabinet. Once that decision was made, the USL replaced the ombudsman and the PDL parliament speakers with Social Liberals not inclined to block the suspension. By replacing the PDL Senate speaker, Antonescu became interim president after BĖsescu’s suspension. The USL transferred the State Gazette from parliament to cabinet, to control the time when decisions were published. The cabinet amended the referendum law to remove the requirement that referenda are valid only if turnout amounts to a majority of all registered voters, and restricted the role of the Constitutional Court to examine governmental decisions.3 On July 5, the USL majority introduced in parliament a proposal for the suspension of President BĖsescu. The document claimed that since BĖsescu’s re-election in 2009, the Romanian democracy had been eroded by the “discretionary and unconstitutional concentration of powers in the hands of one person, the president”, who sponsored “legislative chaos”, infringed on the rule of law, decreased living standards, prompted the bankruptcy of small businesses, and “dissolved the middle class.”4 BĖsescu was blamed for assuming the powers of the prime minister, in defiance of the constitution, when announcing the austerity measures in 2010. The USL rejected a PDL plea for a legislative commission to investigate the validity of the accusations, as was the case with BĖsescu’s first suspension in 2007, but agreed to send the suspension Letter of 100 Romanian intellectuals addressed to the EU leaders. Stelian TĕNASE, Scrisoare către Uniunea Europeană, Bruxelles (July 23, 2012), http://www.stelian-tanase.ro/la-zi/scrisoare-catre-uniunea-europeanabruxelles/ (accessed January 18, 2013); and Laura CIOBANU, Andreea UDREA and Mircea MARIAN, “2012, un an politic cât patru. Care au fost cele mai importante evenimente ale anului”, Evenimentul Zilei (December 31, 2012). 2 Quirin SCHIERMEIER, “Romanian prime minister accused of plagiarism”, Nature (June 18, 2012). 3 A. ASTEFANESEI and S. GHICA, “Curtea ConstituťionalĖ, blocatĖ prin ‘abuz de putere’”, Adevarul (July 4, 2012). 4 “Şedina comunĖ a Camerei Deputaťilor şi Senatului din 5 iulie 2012” (July 5, 2012), http://www.cdep.ro/pls/steno/steno.stenograma?ids=7143&idm=3&idl=1 (accessed January 18, 2013). 1 18 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 proposal to the Constitutional Court. On July 6, in the absence of a decision regarding the constitutionality of the suspension, parliament voted against BĖsescu and announced that a popular referendum will decide whether the president could return. The referendum date was set for July 29. Antonescu became the interim president. Afterwards, the Constitutional Court faced renewed attacks by the USL and retained its prerogatives only after the vigorous intervention of the EU and the Venice Commission. The Court portrayed itself as the last bastion of democracy in Romania, but its decisions on the suspension followed neither the spirit nor the letter of the law. Differences of opinion among judges prevented the Court from blocking the suspension. On the one hand, the Court upheld the suspension, although the constitutional requirement was unmet because the USL failed to prove that BĖsescu had committed any “grave acts.” At the government’s request, the Court allowed voting centres to be opened on the referendum day longer than in 2007. On the other hand, the Court insisted that a simple majority turnout was needed to validate the referendum, though this requirement restricted the citizens’ political input. The higher validation bar increased BĖsescu’s chance to regain his office if many Romanians who were on holiday or who were working abroad did not vote.1 In the referendum campaign the USL asked the Romanians to vote against ‘the dictator’ under whose rule they could not live well because he endorsed PDL’s austerity measures. The president was denounced for mocking the rule of law and being interested only in retaining power at all costs.2 In turn, BĖsescu labelled Ponta and Antonescu ‘monkeys’ and ‘impeachers’ (suspendaci) who protected corrupt politicians deserving to go to jail (puscariabili), disregarded the national interest, and were ridiculed internationally as pitiful plagiarists. He dismissed the no-confidence motion as ‘a defect of democracy’ and the pro-suspension parliamentary vote as a coup d’état, though neither were unconstitutional, and alleged that the Ponta cabinet was taking orders from Russia, which sought to turn Romania into an undemocratic state.3 Blaga and representatives of minor PDL-sponsored parties or civic organizations, but none of the controversial PDL ex-ministers, accompanied BĖsescu in his referendum campaign. The campaign brought BĖsescu together with the PDL to the benefit of the former, not of the latter. Having the PDL at his side allowed BĖsescu to show he still retained the support of a party, battered as it was, provided him with moral and logistical campaign support, and mounted the boycott that brought him back to the presidency. On its part, by helping BĖsescu, the PDL lost time, since it could not reconfigure itself before the elections, and credibility, since the new leader Blaga was as strongly tied to the unpopular president as his predecessor, Boc. Opinion polls pointed to BĖsescu’s defeat, so his strategy changed mid-course. Claiming that the USL planned to rig the vote, BĖsescu declared that the only way to prevent fraud was for his supporters to boycott the vote. If designed to minimise fraud, the strategy was logically untenable, since fewer votes can be rigged as effectively as many votes. If designed to permit his return to Cotroceni, the strategy placed BĖsescu in a corner, since it weakened 1 See Hora iu PEPINE, “Curtea ConstituťionalĖ a validat procedura de suspendare”, Deutsche Welle (July 10, 2012). 2 Among others, Sorin ROŞCA STĕNESCU, “Pentru sau contra ‘dictatorului BĖsescu’”, Jurnalul național (July 27, 2012). 3 “BĖsescu: Antonescu e ‘paiaťĖ’, iar Ponta ‘maimuťĖ’”, Romania Liberă (July 20, 2012). 19 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 his legitimacy by skewing the vote against him. His fraud allegations were never proven, but the boycott was a success. The July 29 referendum had a turnout of 46.2 percent of the registered voters. Some 7.4 million Romanians (87.52 percent of referendum participants) voted against BĖsescu, and 0.9 million (11.15 percent) for him.1 The turnout fell short of the simple majority requirement so the referendum was invalid, but the Constitutional Court had to declare it as such for BĖsescu to return. As the turnout was close to the required minimum, the results were overwhelmingly against BĖsescu, and the president undermined the referendum by calling for the boycott, the USL contested the results, claiming that the turnout was erroneously computed, being based on the 2002 census, not on the 2011 count, which showed a smaller total population. A smaller population meant that the referendum participants accounted for a higher percentage of registered voters, possibly a majority. The Constitutional Court was called to mediate the conflict between the cabinet and the president, and between the USL and the PDL. What followed was a series of blunders. The Court dismissed the government’s call for recalculating the voters’ turnout on the basis of the new census, because it came after the vote took place, the Electoral Bureau already accepted the initial voter registration lists, and the census results were not yet official. It further asked the USL Minister of Interior to submit by August 31 the registration lists. The request blocked BĖsescu’s return, and compelled the cabinet to come up with registration lists documenting a higher voter turnout. In the process, the Ministers of the Interior and Administration, Ioan Rus and Victor Paul Dobre, resigned following pressure from the USL to modify the lists.2 On August 21, the Court invalidated the referendum, dismissing the request to change the turnout computation after the referendum vote took place. The next day, BĖsescu returned to the presidency, but had little to celebrate. First, the referendum gathered more votes against him than what he won in his support in 2004 and 2009, and thus dramatically eroded his popularity. Second, the vote gave the USL the upper hand by bestowing legitimacy to its position. Before the referendum, only BĖsescu derived legitimacy directly from the popular vote, since the USL parliamentary majority and cabinet rested on defections of government legislators to the opposition or the noconfidence motion. Afterwards, the cabinet treated the anti-BĖsescu vote as a pro-USL vote, and felt entitled to speak on behalf of the “people”, understood as the electoral segments inimical to the president. Third, the pro-USL and anti-BĖsescu voters felt cheated by the boycott that invalidated the popular vote and allowed BĖsescu’s return on a technicality. These voters could take no revenge on BĖsescu, since no presidential elections were organized in 2012 and BĖsescu could seek no re-election after having served two mandates. Given its ties to him, the PDL paid the bill for the popular dissatisfaction in the December elections. Last, BĖsescu’s return prolonged his cohabitation with a cabinet ready to sacrifice the rule of law to its short-term goals. International actors took important steps to curtail the USL’s penchant for undermining the rule of law. On July 11, in a letter to Ponta, the EU officials raised 1 Biroul Electoral Central, Rezultatele parțiale ale referendumului național din 29 iulie 2012 pentru demiterea Președintelui României (July 30, 2012). 2 “Ion Predescu (CCR): Erata publicatĖ ulterior în Monitorul Oficial, o decizie politicĖ”, Ziare.com (August 9, 2012). 20 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 eleven demands that the USL cabinet had to fulfil, including recognizing the suspension referendum as valid only if turnout reached a simple majority of all registered voters. Then the European Commission doubted the strength of Romania’s rule of law in its eleventh regular report.1 After BĖsescu’s return, on September 17, Ponta was again summoned to Brussels to discuss his cohabitation with the president. In October the European Popular Party congress met in Bucharest and bestowed credibility on the PDL, all the more so since in August the European Socialists, which include the PSD, decided not to meet in Bucharest due to the intense political infighting that occurred in Romania at the time. Finally, a Venice Commission analysis of BĖsescu’s suspension, conducted at the request of the Romanian Constitutional Court, labelled it as “very problematic.”2 8. THE PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS Parties envisaged the formation of electoral blocs well before the start of the campaign. In 2011 the PDL set out to create the Right Romania Alliance (ARD). Because of BĖsescu’s suspension, it was only in September 2012 that the ARD registered. It united the PDL and two tiny out-of-parliament parties: the National ChristianDemocrat Peasant Party (PNTCD), led by Aurelian Pavelescu, and the Civic Force Party (PFC), led by Ungureanu. The unregistered New Republic Party joined in, and its leader, theologian Mihail Neam u, became an ARD co-president, together with Blaga, Ungureanu, and Pavelescu. The Alliance soon ran into problems. It brought few votes to the PDL, a fact calling into question the entire rebranding effort.3 Pavelescu’s leadership of the PNTCD was contested. The all-male Alliance leadership placed the leader of ARD’s driving force (Blaga of the PDL) on an equal footing with the leaders of parties with negligible electoral following. Neam u’s decision to recite a poem of Radu Gyr, a leader of the inter-war fascist Iron Guard, at the official launch of the ARD candidates forced other Alliance leaders to take distance from him, and the Centre for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism and civil society representatives to denounce Neam u and question his commitment to liberal democratic values.4 As Ungureanu, Neam u and Blaga openly supported BĖsescu’s referendum campaign, the ARD became tied to the unpopular president. Since the ARD was created just before the elections and had little time to advertise itself, the new political label and its relation to the PDL was confusing to many centre-right voters. 1 European Commission, Report from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on Progress in Romania under the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism (July 18, 2012), http://ec.europa.eu/cvm/docs/com_2012_410_en.pdf (accessed January 19, 2013). 2 European Commission for Democracy through Law, Opinion on the Compatibility with Constitutional Principles and the Rule of Law of Actions Taken by the Government and the Parliament of Romania in Respect of Other State Institutions and on the Government Emergency Ordinance on Amendment to the Law 47/1992 Regarding the Organization and Functioning of the Constitutional Court and on the Government Emergency Ordinance on Amending and Completing the Law 3/2000 Regarding the Organization of a Referendum, December 14-15, 2012, http://194.88.148.177/b6/ad/fd/78/efe93_default_581527080653.pdf?c=1f1618b1bb7d030dd7752293ed8 b4507 (accessed May 9, 2013). 3 Iulian LECA, “Vinova ii pentru dezastrul ARD-PDL la alegeri”, Ştiri.com (November 16, 2012). 4 Mihail NEAMŤU, Zeitgeist: tipare culturale şi conflicte ideologice, Curtea Veche, Bucure ti, 2010, pp. 120-126. 21 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 To gain ascendancy over the USL, the ARD appointed an Ethics Commission to vet the integrity of its candidates. But the vetting failed to improve the ARD candidate offering, because the criteria were worded so as to affect few individuals, and 23 of the 36 candidates rejected by the Commission were reinstated through a ‘political decision’ of the ARD leaders. As no other party introduced integrity criteria, many candidates’ track records made them unsuitable to represent the voters.1 By November 5, the nongovernmental Alliance for a Clean Romania identified 664 candidates who failed to fulfil the integrity requirements.2 Eight other formations ran for the upcoming elections. In the Romanian mixedmember proportional representation system, candidates who won an absolute majority of votes in a college gained the seat for that college, but colleges producing no majority winners had seats allocated by the d’Hondt method. The elections were held in 41 counties, Bucharest, and the diaspora. Votes for formations that did not reach the 5 percent threshold were redistributed among the winning parties. Proportional representation enlarged the Chamber of Deputies from 334 to 412 seats, and the Senate from 137 to 176. With its 588 members, the new Parliament is the largest since 1989. Through vote redistribution even candidates placed second or third in a college won seats. All parties made unrealistic promises backed by no sound financial analyses. The ARD promised to reduce income and profit tax to 12 percent to encourage more Romanians to report their economic activities; keep the value-added tax unchanged at 24 percent; raise the minimum wage; and reduce the unemployment contribution by 5 percent. The USL pledged to introduce a progressive income tax structure; leave the profit tax unchanged at 16 percent; raise minimum wage; and decrease the value-added tax to 19 percent. All these benefits were to start in 2016. These pledges were unrealistic and the decreasing tax collection was unfeasible, since Romania had to reduce its deficit, repay loans of 7 billion Euros in 2013 with no access to EU funds, and increase wages for public servants as promised by the Ponta cabinet. The ARD and the USL also failed to address the core requests of business groups that asked for financial stability, more transparent procedures for the firms’ registration, the elimination of red tape, and an end to political interference in public tenders. The electoral platforms of other parties were even less realistic.3 The PPDD promised each citizen hand-outs of 20,000 Euros, free medicine, and child support. It pledged wage and pension increases for all public servants, lustration, lower utility costs, free tractors to each village, the confiscation of unjustified wealth, a citizens’ opinion tribunal to judge politicians for their incompetence, 20,000 apartments rented for 25 Euros per month to young people, jobs for all university graduates, the annulment of parliamentary immunity, Romania’s reunification with its former territory Bessarabia, and a unicameral legislature of 300 members.4 The UDMR 1 Institutul pentru Politici Publice, Propunerile de candidaťi ale partidelor pentru viitorul Parlament: actuali parlamentari migraťi, cercetaťi penal, chiulangii sau rude (November 2012), http://www.ipp.ro/pagini/propunerile-decandida355i-ale-partid.php (accessed November 17, 2012). 2 Alian a pentru o Românie CuratĖ, Verifică integritatea candidatului tău (2012), http://verificaintegritatea.romaniacurata.ro (accessed January 17, 2013). 3 Iulian ANGHEL, “Programele de guvernare ale USL şi ARD faťĖ în faťĖ - cine aruncĖ mai tare cu promisiuni?”, Ziarul Financiar (November 12, 2012). 4 20 de puncte ale Partidului Poporului, n.d., http://www.partidul.poporului.ro/content/20-de-puncte-alepartidului-poporului (accessed January 23, 2013). 22 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 promoted enhanced administrative autonomy in Harghita and Covasna, the protection of minority rights, and cultural self-determination. As in 2008, top politicians ran in safe colleges, where their parties were historically strong, and avoided direct confrontation with rivals of comparable calibre. This meant that some candidates ran in colleges with which they had no previous relation. In most districts the winning candidate was known even before election results were officially announced. Candidates reached out to voters and spent money on advertisement only in those colleges where the race was tight and an active campaign was likely to alter the electoral outcome. The press denounced the campaign as the weakest since 1989, and criticized the USL and the ARD for informally helping each other to win parliamentary representation. The elections consolidated the USL and PPDD gain and the ARD loss registered in the summer elections, and rooted in the popular vote the alternation in power between the PDL and the USL operated by the no-confidence motion. USL won 66.2 and 69.3 percent of deputy and senator seats, respectively, followed by the ARD (13.6 and 13.7 percent), the PPDD (11.4 and 11.9 percent), and the UDMR (4.4 and 5.1 percent). The USL won the largest number of seats ever obtained by a formation after 1989. The ARD scored marginally better than the PPDD. The question is why did the USL capture a clear majority of the vote after months of relentless criticism mounted by international actors, the PDL, and the local press? President BĖsescu’s last-minute intervention might serve as an explanation. His threat to reject the USL candidate for premiership even if the bloc won a majority of the vote may have prompted more pro-USL electors to cast a vote and increased the USL’s support rate. On December 21, President BĖsescu appointed Ponta as prime minister of a new 28-member USL cabinet supported by the second largest post-communist parliamentary majority (second to the PDL-PSD majority that was forged after the 2008 elections). In contrast, the opposition controls a bare 30 percent of seats, and is deeply divided, as the ARD and the UDMR have little in common with the anti-establishment PPDD. 9. CONCLUSION The year 2012 showed the instability of the democratic framework established in 1989-2007 and consolidated by the EU accession in 2007, polarized the party system to an unprecedented degree, pitted the branches of government against each other, and changed the balance of forces among parties. The cutthroat battles between the PDL and the USL, and between the supporters and enemies of President BĖsescu, were waged by unscrupulously using (often abusing) public resources, the vast machinery of the government, the confidence of the electorate, and the country’s international image. The short term winners were the USL, which secured a solid parliamentary majority and appointed the cabinet, and President BĖsescu, who retained his position in spite of the popular vote and the blind enmity of the USL. All three government branches registered a credibility, legitimacy and popularity loss. When it comes to the executive, BĖsescu’s propensity to assume executive 23 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 prerogatives was bound to sour relations with a cabinet no longer representing his PDL. His suggestion of unconstitutionally placing his personal whim above the popular vote could hardly bridge his separation from the ruling USL or ingratiate him with the electorate.1 Rather it convinced many politicians, not all of them anti-BĖsescu, to revisit the Romanian semi-presidential system, the presidential prerogatives, and the division of powers within the executive. For the first time, the parliamentary system seemed a viable alternative. The cabinet, in turn, remained tainted by grave allegations of corruption, plagiarism and dishonesty plaguing its members. When it comes to the legislative, the enlarged Parliament will have difficulty in combating the distrust with which polls have traditionally credited the post-communist Romanian legislative. Even its proponents now believe that the mixed-member proportional representation system was a mistake in need of urgent redress. Compared to its predecessors, the new legislative is neither more representative, responsible and accountable to the electorate, nor less corrupt, vain and office-seeking. When it comes to the judiciary, the wavering commitment to the spirit and letter of the law of the Constitutional Court has shown its subservience to and lack of independence from executive and legislative actors. Nevertheless, 2012 was also the year when the courts broke the unwritten code of silence to convict a high-ranking politician like NĖstase for corruption, and magistrates denounced the unwanted interference of the Minister of Justice, a political figure, in the election of their leaders. Undoubtedly, it was the ordinary citizens who bore the brunt of the 2012 political infighting, whose savings and wages decreased when the national currency was weakened by the investors’ mistrust. Bibliography 20 de puncte ale Partidului Poporului, n.d., http://www.partidul.poporului.ro/content/20-depuncte-ale-partidului-poporului (accessed January 23, 2013). Alegeri locale 2012. Situația voturilor valabil exprimate pe partide, Biroul Electoral Central, Bucure ti, 2012. Alianta pentru o Românie CuratĖ, Verifica integritatea candidatului tau (2012), http://verificaintegritatea.romaniacurata.ro (accessed January 17, 2013). ALIGICA, Dragoş, “Legitimitatea regimului statal oligarhic: tema cheie a momentului”, 22 (July 10-19, 2012). ANGHEL, Iulian, “Programele de guvernare ale USL şi ARD faťĖ în faťĖ - cine aruncĖ mai tare cu promisiuni?”, Ziarul Financiar (November 12, 2012). ASTEFANESEI, A., S. GHICA, “Curtea Constitu ionalĖ, blocatĖ prin ‘abuz de putere’”, Adevarul (July 4, 2012). BARAGAN, Daniela, “Over RON 1 million spent by Ungureanu government on protocol”, Nine O’Clock (September 18, 2012). “BĖsescu: Antonescu e ‘paiaťĖ’, iar Ponta ‘maimuťĖ’”, România Libera (July 20, 2012). BAYLIS, Thomas, “Presidents versus Prime Ministers: Shaping the Executive Authority in Eastern Europe”, World Politics, Vol. 48, No. 3, 1996, pp. 297–323. One out of two respondents blamed BĖsescu for the 2012 events. “First opinion poll after elections – BĖsescu is responsible for what went wrong in 2012”, Nine O’Clock (January 15, 2013). 1 24 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 Biroul Electoral Central, Rezultatele parțiale ale referendumului național din 29 iulie 2012 pentru demiterea Președintelui României (July 30, 2012). CHIRU, Mihail, Sergiu GHERGHINA, “Keeping the Doors Close: Leadership Selection in Post-Communist Romania”, East European Politics and Societies, Vol. 26, No. 3, 2011, pp. 510-537. CIOBANU, Laura, Andreea UDREA and Mircea MARIAN, “2012, un an politic cât patru. Care au fost cele mai importante evenimente ale anului”, Evenimentul Zilei (December 31, 2012). Constitution of Romania (2003), http://www.cdep.ro/pls/dic/ site.page?den =act 2_2& par 1=3# t3c2s0a85 (accessed May 9, 2013). “CSOP poll: Ungureanu wins points in voter confidence index”, Nine O’Clock (April 22, 2012). ELGIE, Robert, “The Classification of Democratic Regime Types”, European Journal of Political Research, Vol. 33, No. 2, 1998, pp. 219–233. European Commission, Report from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on Progress in Romania under the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism (July 18, 2012), http://ec.europa.eu/cvm/docs/com_2012_410_en.pdf (accessed January 19, 2013). European Commission for Democracy through Law, Opinion on the Compatibility with Constitutional Principles and the Rule of Law of Actions Taken by the Government and the Parliament of Romania in Respect of Other State Institutions and on the Government Emergency Ordinance on Amendment to the Law 47/1992 Regarding the Organization and Functioning of the Constitutional Court and on the Government Emergency Ordinance on Amending and Completing the Law 3/2000 Regarding the Organization of a Referendum, December 14-15, 2012, http://194.88.148.177/b6/ad/fd/78/efe93_default_581527080653.pdf?c=1f1618b1 bb7d030dd7752293ed8b4507 (accessed May 9, 2013). “First opinion poll after elections – BĖsescu is responsible for what went wrong in 2012”, Nine O’Clock (January 15, 2013). “HotĖrare 255 din 3 aprilie 2012 privind alocarea unei sume din Fondul de rezervĖ bugetarĖ la dispoziťia Guvernului, prevĖzut în bugetul de stat pe anul 2012, pentru unele unitĖťi administrativ-teritoriale”, Monitorul Oficial al României (April 6, 2012). Institutul pentru Politici Publice, Propunerile de candidați ale partidelor pentru viitorul Parlament: actuali parlamentari migrați, cercetați penal, chiulangii sau rude (November 2012), http://www.ipp.ro/pagini/propunerile-de-candida355i-ale-partid.php (accessed November 17, 2012). “Ion Predescu (CCR): EratĖ publicatĖ ulterior în Monitorul Oficial, o decizie politicĖ”, Ziare.com (August 9, 2012). LECA, Iulian, “Vinova ii pentru dezastrul ARD-PDL la alegeri”, Stiri.com (November 16, 2012). MIHU, L., “Interviu cu Traian BĖsescu: USL pregĖteşte şi a treia suspendare”, România Libera (July 24, 2012). Moțiune de cenzura. 11 împotriva României! (October 6, 2009), http://www.cdep.ro/motiuni/2009/1369.pdf (accessed January 17, 2013). Moțiune de cenzura. Opriti Guvernul șantajabil! (April 18, 2012), http://www.cdep.ro/motiuni/2012/1468.pdf (accessed January 11, 2013). 25 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 NEAMTU, Mihail, Zeitgeist: tipare culturale și conflicte ideologice, Curtea Veche, Bucure ti, 2010. PEPINE, Horatiu, “Curtea ConstituťionalĖ a validat procedura de suspendare”, Deutsche Welle (July 10, 2012). PROTSYK, Oleh, “Intra-Executive Competition between President and Prime Minister: Patterns of Institutional Conflict and Cooperation under Semi-Presidentialism”, Political Studies, Vol. 54, No. 2, 2006, pp. 219-244. ROPER, Steve, “Are All Semipresidential Regimes the Same? A Comparison of PremierPresidential Regimes”, Comparative Politics, Vol. 34, No. 3, 2002, pp. 253–276. RO CA STĕNESCU, Sorin, “Pentru sau contra ‘dictatorului BĖsescu’”, Jurnalul național (July 27, 2012). SCHIERMEIER, Quirin, “Romanian prime minister accused of plagiarism”, Nature (June 18, 2012). “ edin a comunĖ a Camerei Deputaťilor şi Senatului din 5 iulie 2012” (July 5, 2012), http://www.cdep.ro/pls/steno/steno.stenograma?ids=7143&idm=3&idl=1 (accessed January 18, 2013). SHUGART, Matthew, “The Electoral Cycle and Institutional Sources of Divided Presidential Government”, American Political Science Review, Vol. 89, No. 2, 1995, pp. 327–343. SHUGART, Matthew and John M. CAREY, Presidents and Assemblies: Constitutional Design and Electoral Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1992. STAN, Lavinia and RĖzvan ZAHARIA, “Romania”, European Journal of Political Research, Vol. 50, No. 7, 2011, pp. 1105-1114. TEFAN, Laura and Sorin IONITA, “Romania”, in Nation in Transit 2012. Democratization from Central Europe to Eurasia, ed. Sylvana HABDANKKOLACZKOWSKA, Katherin MACHALEK and Christopher WALKER, Rowman and Littlefield, New York, 2012, pp. 431-450. TĕNASE, Stelian, Scrisoare catre Uniunea Europeana, Bruxelles (July 23, 2012), http://www.stelian-tanase.ro/la-zi/scrisoare-catre-uniunea-europeana-bruxelles/ (accessed January 18, 2013). TARAS, Raymond (ed.), Post-Communist Presidents, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1997. 26 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 Post-Accession Backsliding: Non-ideological Populism and Democratic Setbacks in Romania Dragoş DRAGOMAN “Lucian Blaga” University of Sibiu Abstract: The recent political transformations implemented by political elites in Romania, following the accession to the EU, may represent more than serious concerns for political efficiency and accountability. Despite their initial claims to reshape state institutions and to increase the economic performance and despite a number of legitimate transformations already in place, power elites seemed rather interested in having gotten rid of any ideological burden, and looked to favourable mechanisms of consolidating their power. This article highlights elites’ willingness to control the political system and their subsequent shift from legitimate political changes to more personal attempts to bend rules in order to consolidate their power. With no vigorous civil society, a weakened mass-media due to regional economic crisis, and still inchoate political parties, this article shows how democratic institutions and neutral and independent bodies in Romania found themselves under political elites’ siege for tight political control. This political behaviour, recently labelled as “political hooliganism”, may undermine democratic consolidation and help paving the way for more radical and authoritarian political movements. Keywords: democratic setbacks, populism, European integration, patterns of democracy, Romania. 1. INTRODUCTION In a recent research article, Venelin Ganev (2013) accurately mapped significant and novel changes that occurred in Bulgaria and Romania following their accession to the European Union back in 2007.1 His empirical findings concern several key issues in post-communist politics that are various types of corrupt activities, legislative and behavioural changes which undermined previously stable normative frameworks and, finally, a reversal of a general tendency towards the institutional stability known as “state building”. Far from being a collection of disparate empirical findings, the new data configures a new strategy for linking post-accession changes in local elite behaviour to the EU’s (in)ability to keep on its conditionality that effectively worked during the preaccession period. The new data enable Ganev to propose a novel concept that could more accurately unravel the profound change in local elites’ behaviour – the concept of “post accession hooliganism”. “[This concept] might be used as a device for the systematisation of disparate empirical data and thus enable us to order familiar analytical tropes and images 1 Venelin GANEV, “Post-Accession Hooliganism: Democratic Governance in Bulgaria and Romania after 2007”, East European Politics and Societies, Vol. 27, No. 1, 2013, pp. 26-44. 27 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 – the corrupt official, the self-interested legislator, or the local leader who covets Brussels’s approval – around a general theme: how the sticks and carrots of the EU affected the behaviour of democratically elected elites in Eastern Europe”.1 The juxtaposition of the pre-accession and post-accession periods raises the question of the EU effective conditionality. Does it really induce to local elites to consciously embrace and internalise the set of normative principles of a peaceful, democratic, and prosperous Europe, asks Ganev, or it just motivates those elites temporarily and superficially to refrain their selfish impulses for overwhelming political domination and quick material gain? In answering this, Ganev focuses more on Bulgaria and much less on Romania. Although some political issues from 2007 and early 2008 have been taken into account, namely the saga of Anti-Corruption Directorate (DNA) and the National Integrity Agency (ANI) and some corruption issues related to Social Democratic and Democratic Liberal party members with spotted political records were presented, the analysis suddenly ends with the 2008 general elections. There is nothing about further attempts to alter European values like the rule of law, constitutional stability, and good governance. The aim of the present article is to continue and deepen the analysis of how “political hooliganism” shaped the political behaviour of elites in power between 2008 and 2012, with serious effects on the quality of democracy. Fully aware of the severe economic and social conditions of the period, the article highlights the elites’ willingness to control the political system and their subsequent shift from legitimate political changes to more personal attempts to bend rules in order to consolidate their power. With no vigorous civil society, a weakened mass-media due to regional economic crisis, and still inchoate political parties, the article shows how democratic institutions and neutral and independent bodies in Romania found themselves under political hooligans’ siege for tight political control. The democratic setbacks under scrutiny in the Romanian case could be taken both for a valuable experience for democratic consolidation, and a serious warning for post-communist unconsolidated democracies which face or will face the pre- and post-accession EU conditionality. Finally, the article sheds light on a new issue in Eastern European politics, namely the consolidation in power of a non-ideological populism that completely changes the perspective on ideology consolidation within the political arena. 2. THE RISING POPULISM AS “POST-ACCESSION HOOLIGANISM” As expressed by Ganev, despite its theoretical imperfections, the concept of post-accession hooliganism has a considerable heuristic potential. As it is difficult to fully use it, since it was construed by the author as a Weberian ideal type, we decided to empirically approximate one of its subtypes with illiberal populism, noticing ‘hooligans’’ reluctance to comply with EU conditionality, namely the rule of law, constitutional stability and good governance. In fact, transition in Central and Eastern Europe was 1 Ibidem, p. 27. 28 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 generally defined by a liberal consensus, especially with respect to the common objective of NATO and EU integration, namely the supremacy of the constitutional order and the effort for economic liberalization.1 The death of this elite consensus could be seen not only as the ending point of the transition from communist rule, but as the end of more general external constraint, which is the European integration. For many years, EU worked as a powerful constraint tool for political parties and leaders or, to phrase it more symbolically, as an anaesthetic.2 Now, as it cannot really work anymore for most of the countries, excepting Romania and Bulgaria which are still partially under the EU’s mechanism of post-integration control, consensus can be removed and internal politics be reshaped by resurgent post-accession hooliganism.3 Post-accession hooligans now refuse to comply with the separation of powers and to acknowledge the existence of politically neutral institutions, as courts of justice and especially constitutional courts, central banks, supervising and ruling institutions of mass-media. They claim to speak for the real sovereign people and therefore despise all intermediate liberal democratic institutions that mediate representation.4 They persistently arrogate to themselves direct democracy and support charismatic leaders who channel social discontent against elites who oppose them and whom they depict as rigged against ordinary people.5 They don’t hesitate to limit media freedom, to alter the professionalism of civil servants and to replace them with obedient and helpful, yet unqualified, new public servants. Therefore, current political regimes in the region witnessed the unrestricted use of executive power in the logic of the revival of political arbitrary, alongside partisanship and abuse, in areas where consensus was brutally brought down following the EU accession.6 Their political action, emphasise some scholars, could fuel the irrationalism and anti-intellectualism of the economically frustrated middle-class and finally help the resurgence of social conservatism and authoritarianism.7 At this point, Schmitter argues that we have to take into account both vices and virtues of populism.8 On the one hand, populists dissolve partisan loyalties and rational Jacques RUPNIK, “From Democracy Fatigue to Populist Backlash”, Journal of Democracy, Vol. 18, No. 4, 2007, pp. 17-25; Jan ZIELONKA, “The Quality of Democracy after Joining the European Union”, East European Politics and Societies, Vol. 21, No. 1, 2007, pp. 162-180. 2 Grigore POP-ELECHES, “Between Historical Legacies and the Promise of Western Integration: Democratic Conditionality after Communism”, East European Politics and Societies, Vol. 21, No. 1, 2007, pp. 142-161; Frank SCHIMMELFENNIG, “European Regional Organizations, Political Conditionality, and Democratic Transformation in Eastern Europe”, East European Politics and Societies, Vol. 21, No. 1, 2007, pp. 126-141. 3 Paul LEVITZ, Grigore POP-ELECHES, “Why No Backsliding? The European Union’s Impact on Democracy and Governance before and after Accession”, Comparative Political Studies, Vol. 43, No. 4, 2010, pp. 457-485. 4 Bojan BUGARIC, “Populism, Liberal Democracy, and the Rule of Law in Central and Eastern Europe”, Communist and Post-Communist Studies, Vol. 41, No. 2, 2008, pp. 191-203. 5 Ivan KRASTEV, “The Strange Death of the Liberal Consensus”, Journal of Democracy, Vol. 18, No. 4, 2007, pp. 56-63; Eric JONES, “Populism in Europe”, SAIS Review, Vol. XXVII, No. 1, pp. 37-47. 6 Jacques RUPNIK, “From Democracy Fatigue…cit.”. 7 Steven M. EKE, Taras KUZIO, “Sultanism in Eastern Europe: The Socio-Political Roots of Authoritarian Populism in Belarus”, Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 52, No. 3, 2000, pp. 523-547; Takis S. PAPPAS, “Political Leadership and the Emergence of Radical Mass Movements in Democracy”, Comparative Political Studies, Vol. 41, No. 8, 2008, pp. 1117-1140; Mihai VARGA, “How Political Opportunities Strengthen the Far Right: Understanding the Rise in Far-Right Militancy in Russia”, Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 60, No. 4, 2008, pp. 561579; Sarah L. DE LANGE, Simona GUERRA, “The League of Polish Families between East and West, Past and Present”, Communist and Post-Communist Studies, Vol. 42, No. 4, 2009, pp. 527-549. 8 Philippe C. SCHMITTER, “A Balance Sheet of the Vices and Virtues of ‘Populisms’”, Romanian Journal of Political Science, Vol. 7, No. 2, pp. 5-11. 1 29 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 choices among various political programmes without replacing them with something of their own, they recruit uniformed persons with no clear political preferences and who look for emotional rather than programmatic political satisfactions, they make promises and raise expectations that generally cannot be fulfilled, they identify aliens and alien powers as scapegoats for their own political failures and, most important of all, may undermine democracy by the support provided them by the army or security forces, which make their democratic removal from office unlikely. On the other hand, populist politicians and parties help dismantle sclerotic party loyalties and dissolve party coalitions that are based on secret agreements, and they recruit and mobilise previously apathetic persons. By focusing on disparate and hidden political issues, they help articulate previously neglected cleavages and demands; they replace political immobilism and widen the range of possible political solutions to collective problems. All in all, when electorally defeated, populism leaves behind a reinvigorated party system. From this perspective, it is more like a symptom of democracy, rather than a defect of democracy.1 In Romania, although they partially engaged in a profound revision of the whole political system as a response to society’s claims, especially during the first years of president Traian BĖsescu’s first term in office,2 their efforts were less oriented towards widely negotiated and fully legitimate changes and more towards consolidating their power on serious undemocratic costs. This is a common feature in the whole region.3 In Romania, however, populists largely dissimulated their struggle to control the whole political system under the banner of the popular much awaited state reinvigoration, modernisation and constitutional reform. Similar to their counter-parts in the region, Traian BĖsescu, the president of Romania since 2004, and his governing party between 2008 and 2012 (the Democrat-Liberal Party, PDL), after having both won the 2004 elections by promising a bitter fight against endemic corruption and state institutions’ inefficiency, they rapidly turned against liberal democratic institutions: they fiercely attacked parliament as the ultimate expression of unpopular elite domination, they despised judges and the courts of justice for their allegedly undue privileges and immovability, they denied the rule of law and largely criticised hostile mass-media for purportedly continuous hidden arrangements with corrupt politicians and business-men. President BĖsescu and PDL are not the only populists in Romania. Another populist party, Greater Romania Party (PRM), was a constant figure in the Romanian parliament until 2008.4 Meanwhile another populist party, the People’s Party (PPDD), was born in 2011 and proved to be partially successful during the 2012 campaign. None of them had the chance to rule Romania for years, and the brief PRM experience in the government limited to a four-party coalition for a short period of time in the early 1990’s. None of them succeeded in appointing its candidate as president of Romania or 1 Jean-Michel DE WAELE, Anna PACZEŚNIAK (eds.), Populism in Europe – Defect or Symptom of Democracy, Oficyna Naukowa, Warsaw, 2010. 2 Robert F. KING, Paul E. SUM (eds.), Romania under Basescu: Aspirations, Achievements, and Frustrations during His First Presidential Term, Lexington Books, Lanham, 2011. 3 Ilya PRIZEL, “Populism as a Political Force in Post-communist Russia and Ukraine”, East European Politics and Societies, Vol. 15, No. 1, 2000, pp. 54-63; András BOZÓKI, “Consolidation or Second Revolution? The Emergence of the New Right in Hungary”, Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, Vol. 24, No. 2, 2008, pp. 191-231; Krzysztof JASIEWICZ, “The New Populism in Poland: The Usual Suspects?”, Problems of Post-Communism, Vol. 55, No. 3, pp. 7-25. 4 Grigore POP-ELECHES, “Romania’s Politics of Dejection” Journal of Democracy, Vol. 12, No. 3, 2001, pp. 156-169; Paul E. SUM, “The Radical Right in Romania: Political Party Evolution and the Distancing of Romania from Europe”, Communist and Post-Communist Studies, Vol. 43, No. 1, 2010, pp. 19-29. 30 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 in turning its party-president into prime-minister, as PDL successfully did twice on a row. As Mudde emphasises,1 politics is also about perceptions. Populist parties, such as PDL and its leaders, are politically relevant if only because they are perceived as such by large parts of both the elites and the masses. In fact, they are not populists only because they, as other populists in the region, use emotional, simplistic, and manipulative discourses directed at the ‘gut feelings’ of the people, or put in place opportunistic policies aimed at ‘buying’ the support of the people.2 They are not populists only because they appeal to the ‘pure people’ against the ‘corrupt elite’,3 conceived as rigged against ordinary people in an attempt to deprive the sovereign people of their rights, values, prosperity, identity and voice.4 They are not populists only because they organise movements rather than parties and get rid of any established ideology. They are also populists because, due to their shared values, motivations, discourses and actions, they are perceived as such by parts of the journalists and of the academics.5 It is true, other previous ruling parties have also tried to impose their political domination, as the Social Democratic Party (PSD) did during the 2000-2004 period, by controlling the police, channelling the public funding towards the party’s mayors and inhibiting the independent media.6 What makes president BĖsescu and PDL at least as suitable for this title of ‘post-accession hooliganism’, with an additional shade of authoritarianism, is exactly the range of opinions, attitudes and discourses, and the scope of their political actions aimed at transforming the political system, with an emphasis on strict political control and overwhelming domination, a worrisome combination of disproportionate executive power and denial of the rule of law, as underlined below. 2.1. From the early consensus politics to the new logic of domination The new Romanian constitution of 1991, after several months of ardent debates, intended to provide the Romanian post-communist society with a new, democratic framework that engulfed the logic of negotiation and compromise in an extremely conflicting political environment.7 Like in other post-communist countries in the region, the constitutional arrangement discussions were often overshadowed by more vivid contestations regarding transitional justice and ethnic relations that seriously polarised societies.8 Nevertheless, Romania’s constitution and the ensuing basic laws were specially specially designed as to support a reasonable compromise. All in all, the early Romanian Cas MUDDE, Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2007. Ivan KRASTEV, “The Strange Death…cit.”, p. 59. Cas MUDDE, “The Populist Zeitgeist”, Government and Opposition, Vol. 32, No. 3, 2004, pp. 541-563. Daniele ALBERTAZZI, Duncan MCDONNELL (eds.), Twenty-First Century Populism: The Spectre of Western European Democracy, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2007, p. 3. 5 Sergiu GHERGHINA, Sergiu MIŞCOIU (eds.), Partide şi personalităťi populiste în România postcomunistă, Institutul European, Iaşi, 2010; Sergiu GHERGHINA, George JIGLĕU, “Who Votes for Populists in Central and Eastern Europe? A Comparative Perspective from Five EU Member States”, paper presented at the European Consortium for Political Research General Conference, Reykjavik, Iceland, 2011; Mihaela MIROIU, “What Is Left from Democracy? Electoralism and Populism in Romania”, paper presented at the European Consortium for Political Research General Conference, Reykjavik, Iceland, 2011. 6 Monica CIOBANU, “Romania’s Travails with Democracy and Accession to the European Union”, EuropeAsia Studies, Vol. 59, No. 8, 2007, pp. 1429-1450. 7 Henry F. CAREY (ed.), Romania since 1989: Politics, Economics and Society, Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham, 2004. 8 Taras KUZIO, “Transition in Post-communist States: Triple or Quadruple”, Politics, Vol. 21, No. 3, 2001, pp. 168-177; Lavinia STAN (ed.), Transitional Justice in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union, Routledge, London, 2009. 1 2 3 4 31 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 democratic political system reflects a rather consensual than majoritarian logic, when referring to the framework for analysis proposed by Lijphart in his seminal book Patterns of Democracy.1 Thus, the legislators intended back in the early 1990’s to provide Romania with an executive power-sharing in broad, multiparty coalitions and a multiparty system, deriving from a favourable proportional representation, alongside a legislative-executive balance of power. Moreover, those early legislators have opted for a bicameral legislature, conceived as a fair counterweight for an executive power which encompasses a president directly elected by the citizens. Additionally, they decided for a rigid, supermajority-amended constitution and for the judicial review of constitutionality by an independent Constitutional Court. For almost two decades, Romania struggled to consolidate this rather consensual political framework in a very unstable context, marked by ethnic tensions,2 overt contestation, protest and even street violence, as it was the case with the coal miners overthrowing the Romanian government in September 1991. With one notable exception (2000-2004), Romania was ruled by multiparty coalitions. Even during this short period, a minority government was strongly backed up by a supporting allied party in parliament. Moreover, the logic of party coalitions in parliament is visible in the legislative-executive balance of power. Though they are rare, non-confidence votes actually may remove governments from office, as it happened in 2008. Multiparty coalitions in Romania are mainly the result of the multiparty system. Influenced by the proportional representation, Romania’s party system varied from a multiparty system with a dominant party to a multiparty system without a dominant party if we stick to Blondel’s definition of party-systems,3 or could range between a predominant party system and a limited pluralism and even extreme pluralism in Sartori’s terms.4 The emergence and institutionalisation of political parties during the democratisation period,5 period,5 accompanied by increasingly disproportionate effects of the electoral formula when the PR threshold increased from 3% to 5% in 2000, helped to slowly reduce the effective number of parliamentary parties6 in the lower chamber from 4.9 in 1992 to 3.3 in 2008. In fact, the electoral formula adopted by the Electoral Law back in 1991 is a proportional representation with Hare quota allocation at the constituency level, combined with a secondary compensatory adjustment-seat allocation of unused votes from the constituency at the national level using the d’Hondt method of divisors.7 Although the Romanian political system had only a couple of decades to consolidate, numerous critiques targeted several of its aspects. And populists are among Arend LIJPHART, Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Countries, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1999. 2 Mihaela MIHAILESCU, “The Politics of Minimal “Consensus”: Interethnic Opposition Coalitions in PostCommunist Romania (1990-1996) and Slovakia (1990-1998)”, East European Politics and Societies, Vol. 22, No. 3, 2008, pp. 553-594. 3 Jean BLONDEL, “Party Systems and Patterns of Government in Western Democracies”, Canadian Journal of Political Science, Vol. 1, No. 2, 1968, pp. 180-203. 4 Giovanni SARTORI, Parties and Party Systems: A Framework for Analysis, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1976, p. 125. 5 Liliana MIHUT, “The Emergence of Political Pluralism in Romania”, Communist and Post-Communist Studies, Vol. 27, No. 4, 1994, pp. 411-422. 6 Markku LAAKSO, Rein TAAGEPERA, “Effective’ Number of Parties: A Measure with Application to West Europe”, Comparative Political Studies, Vol. 12, No. 1, 1979, pp. 3-27. 7 Jean-Benoit PILET, Jean-Michel DE WAELE, “Electoral Reforms in Romania. Towards a Majoritarian Electoral System?”, European Electoral Studies, Vol. 2, No. 1, 2007, pp. 63-79; Cosmin G. MARIAN, Ronald F. KING, “Plus ça change: Electoral law reform and the 2008 Romanian parliamentary elections”, Communist and Post-Communist Studies, Vol. 43, No. 1, 2010, pp. 7-18. 1 32 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 the most impassioned critics. They repeatedly claimed for substantial revisions of the electoral law, of the legislative-executive balance of power and of the legislature size and structure. Taken separately, they might sound like efficiency proposals, but taken together with various attempts to attack the fragile power-sharing and to control the remaining politically independent bodies like the constitutional court and the audiovisual regulating body, they might tell another story. Though PDL and Traian BĖsescu initially tried to answer the legitimate claims for political system reinvigoration, fairness, transparency and accountability, later on they focused rather on consolidating their power at all costs, with no rule of law, fair balance and equity. Whereas at first he had laid stress on truth and justice slogans, promising the access to the former communist political police files and to morally clean the Romanian society,1 president Traian BĖsescu only verbally condemned the communist system. Though the President endorsed a report issued by the Presidential Commission for the Analysis of Communist Dictatorship in Romania (otherwise known as the Truth Commission), his governing party (PDL) did not promote any policy of transitional justice.2 Despite the fact that they promised a bitter fight against pervasive corruption, independent Romanian media and experts kept on pinpointing numerous cases of corruption affecting high government officials, including the head of the Fiscal National Agency and the youth minister in the PDL government.3 Due to serious financial misconducts, the European Commission decided in 2012 to suspend payments for a great number of projects supervised by the Ministry of Regional Development and Tourism. Due to those salient cases, Romanian citizens and even EU member states perceived corruption in Romania as widespread as they have done years before. This was the case of France and Netherlands, which strongly opposed in 2011 to Romania’s entry to the Schengen area of free circulation of citizens within the EU. The Transparency International Corruption Perception Index for Romania indicates even a minor setback in 2010 in comparison with 2009 and 2008. When populists began to talk in 2009 about strengthening the presidential powers, abandon the proportional representation and adopt plurality or majoritarian electoral systems at national and even local level (‘first-past-the-post’, FPTP or ‘tworound’ runoff elections, TR) and to put in place a weaker, reduced unicameral legislature instead of a strong bicameral assembly, they seemed to be talking rather about giving away the previous logic of consensus and minority representation and favouring a majoritarian-style of political domination. In fact, as discussed below, each of those changes has profound consequences for the overall functioning of the political system. For example, according to many scholars, the electoral system change generally affects the party system, the parliamentary competition, the cabinet formation and the government stability.4 Moreover, the ‘presidentialisation’ of the political system might 1 Lavinia STAN, “Moral Cleansing Romanian Style”, Problems of Post-Communism, Vol. 49, No. 4, 2002, pp. 5262; idem, “Spies, files and lies: explaining the failure of access to Securitate files”, Communist and PostCommunist Studies, Vol. 37, No. 3, 2004, pp. 341-359. 2 Monica CIOBANU, “Criminalising the Past and Reconstructing Collective Memory: The Romanian Truth Commission”, Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 61, No. 2, 2009, pp. 313-336. 3 Laura ŞTEFAN, Dan TAPALAGĕ, Sorin IONIŤĕ, “Romania”, in Freedom House, Nations in Transit 2010: Democratization from Central Europe to Eurasia, Washington DC, 2010, pp. 413-431. 4 Maurice DUVERGER, Political Parties: Their Organization and Activity in the Modern World, Wiley, New York, 1963; Arend LIJPHART, “The Political Consequences of Electoral Laws, 1945-1985”, American Political Science Review, Vol. 84, No. 2, 1990, pp. 481-496; Douglas W. RAE, The Political Consequences of Electoral Laws, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1971; Giovanni SARTORI, Comparative Constitutional Engineering: An Inquiry into Structures, Incentives and Outcomes, Macmillan, Basingstoke, 1997. 33 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 undermine not only the legislative-executive balance of power and the consolidation of parliamentarism,1 but even the quality of democracy.2 2.2. Changing for winning? The use and misuse of the electoral law In the aftermath of the 1989 anti-communist revolution, the Romanian parliament decided to use proportional representation (PR) for the election of representatives in the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies. For almost two postcommunist decades, the electoral system was under violent criticism not only for its results, but for its mechanism of candidate selection as well. Despite the benefits of proportionality for minority anti-communist parties supported by the intellectual elites who were opposing post-communist successor parties in the early ’90s,3 PR was quickly designated by many intellectuals and politicians as a significant obstacle in reinvigorating political parties’ offers in terms of programmes and especially candidates. The inertia of power-elites and their unwillingness to make significant changes were soon associated by the public discourse with the severe lack of government efficiency and pervasive corruption. Focusing on candidate selection mechanisms, which were not free of corruption and served many times to appoint inefficient politicians, and largely neglecting the benefits of proportionality, many critics of PR considered that ordinary citizens could more effectively select the candidates during the electoral campaign, instead of trusting political parties’ selection mechanisms. Many NGOs and the public opinion largely entrusted electoral reform and the passage from PR to a single-member district majoritarian system as a clear means of enhancing transparency and responsibility, fostering electoral competition, and compelling improvements in the quality of representative government.4 During the 2007-2008 disputes regarding the electoral models adopted for change, PDL clearly emphasised the majority-rule arrangements. They preferred the firstpast-the-post system (FPTP), and their only second option was a French type majoritarian two-round runoff system (TR). The Liberal Party (PNL),5 in government at that time, issued a legislative proposal based on the German mixed-member model that carefully balances legitimacy through district-based elected MPs with overall proportional fair political representation, and its proposal was adopted by the parliament. President BĖsescu, former PDL leader, contested the voted law before the Constitutional Court and succeeded in invalidating it in November 2007. Moreover, using his constitutional right to appoint national referendums, he decided to accompany the election of Romania’s European deputies in November 2007 by a popular referendum on the topic 1 Terry D. CLARK, Jill N. WITTROCK, “Presidentialism and the Effect of Electoral Law in Postcommunist Systems”, Comparative Political Studies, Vol. 38, No. 2, 2005, pp. 171-188. 2 Juan J. LINZ, “The Perils of Presidentialism”, Journal of Democracy, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1990, pp. 51-69. 3 Grigore POP-ELECHES, “Separated at Birth or Separated by Birth? The Communist Successor Parties in Romania and Hungary”, East European Politics and Societies, Vol. 13, No. 1, 1998, pp. 117-147; Cosmina TĕNĕSOIU, “Intellectuals and Post-Communist Politics in Romania: An Analysis of Public Discourse, 1990-2000”, East European Politics and Societies, Vol. 22, No. 1, 2008, pp. 80-113; Vladimir TISMANEANU, “The Quasi-revolution and its Discontents: Emerging Political Pluralism in Post-Ceauşescu Romania”, East European Politics and Societies, Vol. 7, No. 2, 1993, pp. 309-348. 4 Cosmin G. MARIAN, Ronald F. KING, “Plus ça change…cit.”, p. 10. 5 PNL and PD (former name of PDL) formed in 2004 the ‘Justice and Truth’ alliance that managed to electorally defeat PSD in the 2004 elections. They consequently formed the bulk of the cabinet between 2004 and 2007, when PDL decided to withdraw from the ruling coalition and to support the incumbent President BĖsescu for the 2009 presidential elections. 34 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 of the uninominal voting system. Though the ‘uninominal voting system’ syntagm may cover multiple meanings and pertain in fact to numerous voting systems,1 the referendum only worded the president’s preference for a TR system, akin to the French model of the double ballot. Only the low turnout disabled the president’s proposal to be validated, despite that four-fifths of the voters voted ‘yes’. Finally, the electoral law adopted by the parliament in 2008 was a compromise between the government’s, the president’s and NGO’s proposals, ending in a very complicated single-member district uninominal voting system. The new law turned the electoral system from a very difficult to understand and complicated to operate system to a more convoluted and obscure one. Whereas its effects on the political representation are almost the same, because it maintains national politics centred on the same nationally institutionalised parties, it adds another tier of complication, uncertainty and confusion in the allocation of parliamentary seats. It is only another step forward in order to achieve district-based representation, with no effects on the selection of candidates and on the ‘purifying’ of the political class.2 Though PDL members overtly criticised the new Romanian voting system for the parliament during the 2008 campaign, they managed to fully use it in order to secure the first place. They won the elections by a narrow margin of only one seat in the lower chamber of the parliament ahead of their political rivals, PSD and PNL. Yet their practices did not match with the arguments they have pointed out when campaigning for the uninominal voting system. Instead of a candidate-centred campaign, PDL members used a nation-wide unified giant electoral campaign supported by the president’s popularity. They did not increase the legitimacy of the elected representatives by appointing candidates that lived in the county constituency and local districts or that felt eager to establish connections with local settings, electors or even with their own party’s local organisations. Unfortunately, because candidates were nominated by parties, it only increased loyalty and preserved clientele networks.3 After the elections, they did not help consolidate the linkage between electors and MPs, as they encouraged MPs from other parties in parliament to despise their responsibility towards districts of origin, to break with their initial party ranks and join PDL in order to secure a ‘fabricated’ majority.4 Despite this behaviour, they officially continued to ask for a more profound progress towards pure majoritarianism, expressed by the FPTP system, or at least towards TR, as underlined by president BĖsescu in several public discourses, as a means of enforcing transparency and responsiveness.5 The willingness to change the electoral system in order to consolidate the power and to undermine the opposition’s political resources was the key issue in 2011. In fact, PDL used citizens’ discontent with the quality of political elites to overtly attack PR (which is by no means a faulty electoral system and it is still used in many consolidated democracies like Switzerland, Belgium or the Netherlands) and to replace it with more Arend LIJPHART, “The Political Consequences of Electoral Laws…cit.” Cosmin G. MARIAN, Ronald F. KING, “Plus ça change…cit.” Ibidem, p. 17. From December 2009 to April 2012, the government coalition was formed by PDL, the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR) and a smaller group of ‘fugitive’ MPs from the opposition parties, who decided to join the government coalition ranks. 5 NewsIn Agency, 18 January 2011, http://www.newsin.ro/basescu-reformaelectorala.php?cid=login&hid=default&notAllowed=1&lor=http%3a%2f%2fwww.newsin.ro%3a80%2fDef ault.aspx%3fcid%3dview%26nid%3dde7a09e7-38f6-40b9-804f-89ec93018243%26hid%3dmedia, accessed at 08.02 PM. 1 2 3 4 35 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 favourable electoral systems in terms of disproportionality, looking, in other words, for more mandates with fewer votes. As a clear type of self-interested legislators, postaccession hooligans were in favour of the change as long as they expected to gain sufficient political advantages. Acknowledging that changing the electoral system will impact on other elements of the political system, PDL used its majority in parliament to enforce the majoritarian effects of the electoral law, starting with essential changes at local level. The special linkage between local and national elections and politics is broadly underlined below. Though TR was already in place in Romania since 1992 and was used for the election of mayors, PDL managed to change the Electoral Law and to impose the FPTP system in local elections beginning with 2012. This was for the first time that mayors in Romania were elected not by a majority, but by a plurality (which can also be a minority) of voters, trading the democratic legitimacy of the mayors for the benefits of a low-cost electoral mobilisation in 2012. This preference for the FPTP system suddenly ended in May 2012, following the parliament’s no confidence vote and the dismissal of the PDL-UDMR government. The new majority formed by PNL, PSD and former PDL MPs passed a new electoral law for the next parliamentary elections. This was essentially based on pure majoritarianism, namely on the FPTP system. Facing a severe electoral defeat, PDL contested the law to the Constitutional Court and the court overruled the law, keeping in place the electoral provisions of 2008. Those provisions that proportionally distribute mandates finally enabled PDL candidates to be represented in parliament after PDL’s disastrous electoral defeat in the 2012 elections. Of course, the incentive to change the rules of the game in order to consolidate one’s power is by no means a monopoly of the PDL. But the readiness to misuse legal provisions in order to undermine the opposition’s political resources was a convenient precedent and a suitable incentive for the next PSD-PNL government, largely accused in the summer of 2012 of engaging in the same practices. 2.3. Altering the rules of the game: postponing local elections Evoking budgetary cuts of almost 20 million euros,1 PDL decided in December 2011 to postpone the local elections that had to be democratically held in June 2012 and to hold them at the same time with the parliamentary elections in December 2012 or in spring 2013 at the latest. Moreover, the method used for passing the law in parliament is relevant to the political domination model endorsed, which tends to exclude any legitimate contestation. In order to avoid any parliamentary debate on the issue, the government run by PDL’s president, Prime-Minister Emil Boc, decided to endorse the law by engaging its responsibility. This constitutional procedure enables, in fact, the government to automatically turn any proposal into effective law if the opposition in parliament does not demand a confidence vote or if such a vote is rejected by the majority. On the contrary, a vote of confidence that fails automatically implies the fall of the government and the rejection of the proposal. Despite the supporting majority in parliament, PM Emil Boc used 13 times this procedure in order to turn proposals into effective laws, generally pertaining to essential domains such as education, health care, public administration and budgetary and fiscal actions. Although this is not at all illegal, 1 This figure has to be compared with the consolidated budget for 2012, estimated at 45 billion euros. 36 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 this propensity for automatic law enacting only adds to the features of post-accession hooliganism that avoids free and democratic debate on parliamentary proposals, by turning peculiar acts of will into effective laws. Why would a governing party intend to alter the rules of the game six months before the elections? In fact, local elections are critical for parties in Romania. On the one hand, as they generally have place six months before parliamentary elections, their results act as benchmarks for the performance of political parties. In a Romanian context marked by a deep distrust regarding pre-electoral surveys, local election results clearly indicate the strength of the parties and almost accurately anticipate parliamentary election results. And this is especially the case of the elections for county councillors and for the presidents of county councils, which are by far the most ‘political’ elections. Unlike county elections, the local elections for commune and town councils and especially those for the mayor’s office are to be considered as the most ‘utilitarian’, in Downsian terms, since voters’ actions are rational in pursuing utility, i.e. each citizen casts his vote for the mayoral candidate he believes will provide him with more benefits than any other.1 The comparison between county and parliamentary elections would have given the opposition a clue about the ruling party’s strength and would have helped the opposition in running the general campaign. On the other hand, local elected officials in Romania can often work as electoral agents for their parties. By controlling local resources, especially in poorer rural areas, they usually discriminatorily provide citizens with various resources and facilities, from crop aids and timber supply to aids in cash, forcing them to electorally behave appropriately. Since half of the Romanian peasants are engaged in subsistence farming, they have been almost entirely ‘captured’ by local predatory elites who control resources and therefore local politics.2 This kind of ‘patronage’ or new ‘latifundism’ are also to be found in other rural and less developed countries in Eastern Europe.3 Yet this strict dependency is strengthened in Romania by the governmental redistribution mechanisms. Designed to help local authorities to overcome unexpected difficulties and, more generally, to bridge development disparities,4 central government disposable funds and fiscal equalisation funds were never void of political purposes. Whereas the central government may transfer equalization funds to counties, by taking for example into account their fiscal capacity to collect personal income tax or their stringent development needs, county councils may in turn distribute equalisation funds to local communities inside counties. Controlling the central government and controlling as many county councils may provide the suitable tool to control the very local politics and influence voting, especially in backward rural communities confronted with harsh economic difficulties. Mixing local and parliamentary elections would make impossible a rebellion of local elected officials who might find an incentive to migrate towards the ranks of the most probable winning party in the subsequent parliamentary elections. By doing so, PDL expected to more tightly control its own local elected officials and to Anthony DOWNS, An Economic Theory of Democracy, Addison-Wesley, New York, 1957. Alina MUNGIU-PIPPIDI, “Reinventing the Peasants. Local State Capture in Post-Communist Europe”, Romanian Journal of Political Science, Vol. 3, No. 2, 2003, pp. 23-38. 3 Jan LUBECKI, “Echoes of Latifundism? Electoral Constituencies of Successor Parties in Post-Communist Countries”, East European Politics and Societies, Vol. 18, No. 1, 2004, pp. 10-44. 4 Drago DRAGOMAN, “Regional Inequalities, Decentralization and the Performance of Local Governments in Post-communist Romania”, Local Government Studies, Vol. 37, No. 6, 2011, pp. 647-669. 1 2 37 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 more effectively spend local resources for electoral purposes. Contested by the opposition, the law was in the end overruled by the Constitutional Court. When finally held in June 2012, the local elections were largely won by the opposition and clearly anticipated the severe defeat of the ruling party in December 2012. Although postponing local elections would have saved 20 million euros and most probably offered PDL a mere electoral advantage, this measure would have seriously undermined democracy in terms of mechanism and resources. In order to keep the rationality of both political system and political actors within, Downs emphasises the key condition of fair and limited action of those in power and in opposition, i.e. the liberty of the government of disposing of economic resources for various policies that bring popular electoral support, yet limiting the power of the government in restricting the opposition’s access to politically meaningful resources, including elections.1 Suspending or postponing elections actually prevent unsatisfied citizens to freely express political choices and baulk the citizens’ support. This may explain the outburst of public criticism, street protests and the urban violence of January 2012, when the government decided to pass a controversial new law on public health by assuming its responsibility for the 14th time on a row. Moreover, PDL’s intention to postpone local elections in order to alter the rules of the game and gain political advantages, especially by exploring unorthodox means to reduce its expected electoral losses, was clearly underlined by the 2012 Freedom House Nations in Transit Report as a very concerning issue, fully motivating its decision to downgrade Romania’s score reflecting the electoral process held in 2011.2 2.4. Redefining institutional balance and design: weakening the legislature The post-accession hooliganism is also marked by a reversal of a general tendency towards the institutional stability known as ‘state building’.3 This is what Bugaric would label as an attack against liberal democratic institutions,4 especially when the main specific target is parliament, seen by political hooligans as futile and ineffective. It is true, the Romanian parliament has a bad image as a collective body that merely responds to citizens’ needs. This is partially due to its incapacity or unwillingness to limit the legal impunity of the MPs who are under prosecutors’ investigation. Consequently, during post-communism, parliament benefited of the lowest citizens’ trust rate among Romanian institutions. At the same time, in order to consolidate, democracy needs citizens’ confidence that political institutions do not abuse their privileged position of power.5 This is exactly the case in Romania, where the parliament was pinpointed by populists as the ultimate expression of irresponsiveness and abuse. Moreover, populists claimed that its allegedly privileged position has to be challenged through a new institutional design. Back in 2007, the parliament impeached and suspended president Anthony DOWNS, An Economic Theory of Democracy…cit. Laura ŞTEFAN, Sorin IONIŤĕ, “Romania”, in Freedom House, Nations in Transit 2012, Washington DC, 2012, pp. 431-450. 3 Venelin GANEV, “Post-Accession Hooliganism…cit.” 4 Bojan BUGARIC, “Populism, Liberal Democracy, and the Rule of Law…cit.” 5 Kari LÜHISTE, “Explaining Trust in Institutions: Some Illustrations from the Baltic States”, Communist and Post-Communist Studies, Vol. 39, No. 1, 2006, pp. 475-496. 1 2 38 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 BĖsescu, only to see him back in office following a substantial vote in the required national referendum.1 Launching his counteroffensive by putting his personal popularity against the low esteem for the parliament,2 and according to his constitutional right to initiate referendums, the restored president called for a serious change in the composition of the parliament. A new referendum was once again established to accompany regular elections in 2009, this time exactly that of the President himself, and strengthening thereby the conflict between populists and the sclerotic political class embodied by the parliament. The wording of the referendum included the populists’ proposal of reducing the number of MPs from 471 to no more than 300, and the passage to a unicameral representative body. The majority of the electors (50.16%) voted in favour of the referendum. Since the referendum was consultative and not legally binding, the parliament was finally called to decide upon the change. The conflict of 2007 between president BĖsescu and the parliamentary coalition led by then prime-minister TĖriceanu and PNL leader clearly expressed the institutional purpose of the populists. The restoration of the president in office only boosted populists’ claims to weaken what they called the abusive power of the parliament. Backed by the president himself, they therefore proposed that a failed attempt at impeachment should automatically trigger the dissolution of the parliament. In the president’s words, “if the referendum confirms the president, then the Parliament is dissolved”.3 In fact, the parliament was several times menaced by the president with its dissolution – the last time it happened during the presidential election campaign in 2009, when he declared he would dissolve the parliament if his favourite appointed candidate for prime-minister was not supported by the parliament.4 Those claims and menaces point at the seemingly uncomfortable feelings of the populists about the current constitutional arrangements that make Romania a weak semi-presidential regime or even a parliamentary regime. When it comes to define the Romanian semi-presidentialism, one could limit one’s analysis to the constitutional text itself. Thus the Romanian parliamentary system makes an effort to create an enough powerful president, but not too powerful to change its parliamentary features, despite the popular election of the president. According to Sartori, those features derive from several constitutional provisions.5 In theory, the president works as ‘mediator’ between state institutions, which really make him a president from a typical parliamentary system. Additionally, the president does not hold strong powers as he always has to consult parliamentary parties when he appoints a new prime-minister, the parliament when he intends to dissolve the parliament or to initiate a referendum. Sartori concludes that the Romanian president is not powerful enough in order to label the Romanian system as a semi-presidential one, i.e. he has not strong powers (as the veto power) and all significant legislative powers appertain to the Lavinia STAN, RĖzvan ZAHARIA, “Romania”, European Journal of Political Research, Vol. 47, Nos. 7-8, 2008, pp.1115-1126. 2 Cosmin G. MARIAN, Ronald F. KING, “Plus ça change…cit.” 3 ‘BĖsescu pleads for President’s impeachment procedure change’, Nine O’Clock, 10 January 2011, http://www.nineoclock.ro/index.php?issue=4856&page=detalii&categorie=politics&id=20110110-512799, accessed on 01 February 2011. 4 Amos News Agency, 16 October 2009, 03.12 PM, http://www.amosnews.ro/2009/Basescu_anunta_ca_poate_dizolva_Parlamentul_a_doua_zi_dupa_turul_al _doilea_al_prezidentialelor-290040 5 Giovanni SARTORI, “Despre sistemul constituťional românesc”, appendix to the Romanian edition of Comparative Constitutional Engineering: An Inquiry into Structures, Incentives and Outcomes (Ingineria constituťională comparată. Structuri, stimulente şi rezultate), Institutul European, Iaşi, 2008, pp. 313-319. 1 39 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 government. In practice, however, the current president very quickly abandoned his mediator status and acted much more like a de facto party leader, negotiating with parties for securing PDL a safe majority into parliament, openly attacking opposition parties and overtly supporting his favourite candidate for the presidency of PDL in March 2013. His practice of frequently heading PDL meetings was even acknowledged as ‘customary’ by PDL leaders.1 When the president was impeached and suspended for the second time, in 2012, the Constitutional Court clearly acknowledged and stated the president’s lack of neutrality and sanctioned his decision to abandon his mediator status. Moreover, the president also abandoned his constitutional obligation of consulting parliamentary parties and taking their positions into account when appointing a new candidate for primeminister. Back in October 2009, he refused to appoint the prime-minister candidate supported by opposition parties, the mayor of Sibiu city, Klaus Johannis, though the previous PDL cabinet collapsed with the no-confidence vote of the same majority in parliament, making prime-minister Emil Boc the first PM dismissed by the parliament since 1989.2 The president ignored the parliamentary majority formed then by PSD, PNL and UDMR and surprisingly demanded that such an ad-hoc majority be sanctioned by a court decision.3 His main argument was that he only had to consult with the party holding a parliamentary majority and wished to have it his way by renaming the same prime-minister, Emil Boc, the PDL leader dismissed only a few weeks before. His appointment was possible only after president BĖsescu won his second term in office by regrouping PDL, UDMR and fugitive MPs from other parties, who managed to gather a slim majority in parliament. Another visible de facto predominance of the government over the parliament is not only the great number of laws passed by engaging the government’s responsibility,4 but the mechanism of government emergency ordinances. Though emergency ordinances are acknowledged by the Constitution as legitimate means of responding to urgent issues (catastrophes, natural disasters, large scale accidents), the populists in the government turned the exception into a rule and issued a great number of such decrees that inflated the parliamentary activity. Though the emergency ordinances are to be finally voted by the parliament, they are effective from the moment when they are issued by the government and their consequences hardly can be erased by subsequent contrary decisions of the parliament. Though PDL was not the first party to have abused of the government’s prerogatives of fighting (relevant or irrelevant) emergency issues with emergency ordinances, during the electoral campaign PDL made a solemn and emotional ‘Top-level meeting between BĖsescu, Boc and PDL MPs, Nine O’Clock, 28 January 2011, http://www.nineoclock.ro/index.php?issue=4856&page=detalii&categorie=politics&id=20110128-512855, accessed on 01 February 2011. 2 Victor LUPU, “Many Things Hard to understand”, Nine O’Clock, 21 October 2009, http://www.nineoclock.ro/index.php?issue=4856&page=detalii&categorie=frontpage&id=20091021501531, accessed on 01 February 2011. 3 Preparing for the 2012 elections, the opposition parties (PNL and PSD) formed in 2011 a legally binding political alliance, and not a simple parliamentary majority, called the Social-Liberal Union (USL). This Union will finally largely impose in the 2012 local and general elections and form the government in December 2012. 4 Another symbolic subordination of the parliament was the way the government faced the confidence vote in parliament demanded by opposition parties, when the government decided to engage its responsibility for a law proposal. In order to avoid unpleasant situations that sometimes occurred during the confidence vote, while a very limited number of PDL MPs overtly voted against their government, beginning with 2010, PDL MPs were not allowed by their party leaders to stand up, express their views or vote in parliament. They were forced to be seated and wait for the end of the plenary session, which 13 times ended with the defeat of the opposition and the confirmation of the PDL government in place. 1 40 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 plea to the previous PSD government to drop off this undemocratic practice. As emphasised by the Freedom House report for 2010,1 the issuing of an inordinately high number of emergency ordinances was a severe government abuse of power. PDL government also abused of its right to issue such ordinances the previous year, when it issued no less than 86 emergency ordinances in the first 6 months of 2009, in cases when the government’s emergency intervention was not needed.2 The matters concerned by those ordinances rarely displayed their emergency justification, as they generally pertained to public spending, acquisitions and commercial agreements unrelated to emergency situations as severe natural disasters or large scale catastrophes or accidents. The parliament was finally undermined by an unprecedented move of the parliamentary majority. Although the Constitutional Court was always asked to decide on the parliament’s procedural issues, the court never attacked political issues decided by the parliament. Fearing an increasing instability of its majority in parliament, the PDL government passed in 2010 a law requesting the Constitutional Court to decide on political matters any time the Court is notified. Now that the Court was empowered by the free will of the parliament itself, it would be impossible for the parliament to redraw this prerogative. When in 2012 the parliament tried indeed to recover its full powers by the means of a new law restricting the Court’s prerogatives to the extent of power the Court enjoyed before 2010, the Court simply overruled the law and kept its ability to decide on political matters. The unprecedented overwhelming power of the Constitutional Court could explain why PDL was not only interested in securing its power through favourable electoral mechanisms and institutional engineering, but also tried to control channels otherwise free of political control, including the Constitutional Court. Despite the fact that its independent status is questionable, since its members are selected by political bodies and many times those members happened to be former ministers or deputies, the Constitutional Court of Romania was set up by the 1991 Constitution to impartially put in place the judicial review of constitutionality in the framework of a centralised system of judicial review, as it works in Austria, Germany or Italy. Its members are appointed by the President and by the two Chambers of the parliament. Thus the process of appointing a new judge is not at all indifferent to the parties in power. The question becomes even more acute when the parliamentary majority is fragile or when the balance inside the Court itself is uncertain. This was obvious in June 2010, with the election of a replacing judge appointed by the Chamber of Deputies, when the opposition speculated the lack of attention by the governing coalition deputies and managed to get elected its own candidate. Noticing the blunder, the President of the Chamber, a PDL deputy, invalidated the vote and forced a new vote at 2 A.M., when opposition deputies got tired and left the plenary session.3 This move proved to be decisive, as many controversial laws initiated by the government were afterwards declared fully constitutional by the Constitutional Court. The suspicion of limited independence of the Court’s judges is even stronger today, when the Court can easily censure the parliament. This final move of controlling the parliament’s acts by the means of successive Constitutional Court’s Laura ŞTEFAN, Dan TAPALAGĕ, Sorin IONIŤĕ, “Romania…cit.”, p. 414. Ibidem, p. 418. http://www.adevarul.ro/actualitate/eveniment/Alesii_PDL_au_luat_cu_asalt_Curtea_ ConstituťionalĖ_0_280772470.html, accessed on 02 February 2011. 1 2 3 41 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 decisions is, in fact, defining for post-accession hooliganism, namely a willingness to support legislative and behavioural changes that undermine previously stable normative frameworks.1 3. NON-IDEOLOGIC POPULISM AND DEMOCRATIC SETBACKS: A CONCLUSION Post-accession to the European Union has witnessed in Romania, as mentioned earlier, a strong willingness to support essential legislative and behavioural changes undermining previously coherent normative frameworks that led to a reversal of the general tendency towards stabilisation of interactive patterns and administrative routines, namely the state building.2 These changes have been labelled by Ganev as “postaccession hooliganism” in order to catch the new reality where legal procedures and institutions are baffled and disdained when they oppose to the pure will of those in power. Despite previously stated intentions to reform the state institutional mechanisms and improve the economic performance,3 post-accession hooligans seem rather to have looked for favourable mechanisms of consolidating the power, silence critics, destruct democratic institutions and undermine opposition parties. These new populist elites address the citizens with no emphasis on ideology, which they disdain as obsolete, organise movements rather than parties and search the pure power, disregarding the constitutional frameworks or patterns of democracy. The democratic setbacks in Romania are also visible in the Freedom House democracy scores. In the Nations in Transit Report (2012), Romania’s democracy score4 worsened from its best rating in 2007 of 3.29, to the 2010 rating of 3.46, with a slight improvement in 2011 and 2012 to the score of 3.43, due to the increasing performance of the judicial framework and independence in the context of the enforcement of a new civil code.5 Thus Romania is currently labelled by Freedom House, alongside Bulgaria, as a semi-consolidated democracy, the only semi-consolidated democracies among the former communist countries that are now members of the European Union, with scores closer to those of Croatia and Serbia than to those of Slovakia, Hungary or Poland. The FH scores uncover recent serious setbacks in democratic standards in Romania, especially regarding the electoral process, the national governance and the independent media. The intention to postpone local elections in 2011 aimed at altering the electoral rules to achieve political advantage. The PDL government abused its power by issuing an inordinately high number of emergency ordinances in 2009 and 2010. The PDL-UDMR majority in parliament abused the government’s prerogative of turning proposals into laws (13 times between 2009 and 2012) and finally mandated the Constitutional Court to decide on political matters and to overrule the parliament’s acts. According to the Supreme Council for National Defence run by president BĖsescu himself, the massmedia has been officially acknowledged in 2010 as a weakness of the national defence Venelin GANEV, “Post-Accession Hooliganism…cit.” Ibidem, p. 27. Robert F. KING, Paul E. SUM (eds.), Romania under Basescu…cit. The ratings are based on a scale of 1 to 7, with 1 representing the highest level of democratic progress and 7 the lowest. 5 Laura ŞTEFAN, Sorin IONIŤĕ, “Romania…cit.” 1 2 3 4 42 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 system, due to allegedly persistent press campaigns against politicians and state institutions.1 Moreover, PDL’s struggle in parliament, in 2010, to impose its representative as director of the national broadcasting television, at the recommendation of the president himself, raised suspicions about political control of the national television, in the context of the overt political conflict between president BĖsescu and private mass-media institutions and publishers.2 The way post-accession populists currently despise representative democracy, parliamentarism and the rule of law, their continual attacks against neutral and independent bodies may help paving the way for more radical political movements. It can be the case of radical populist movements and radical extremists or even for authoritarian regimes,3 who might attempt to take political control, often in the very name of direct democracy and people’s genuine will. But it also can be the case of the former opposition to the PDL, who might continue to use the logic of the altered political game to consolidate its power by even more serious attacks against the independence of the judicial framework, including the Constitutional Court, and by means of unfair electoral, governmental and parliamentary procedures. Only if successfully contained, post-accession hooliganism is to be acknowledged as a worthy experience for the future democratic consolidation in Romania. At the same time, the populists’ road to power questions furthermore the relevance and accuracy of ideologies within a political framework dominated by the struggle for the pure power. 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VARGA, Mihai, “How Political Opportunities Strengthen the Far Right: Understanding the Rise in Far-Right Militancy in Russia”, Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 60, No. 4, 2008, pp. 561-579. ZIELONKA, Jan, “The Quality of Democracy after Joining the European Union”, East European Politics and Societies, Vol. 21, No. 1, 2007, pp. 162-180. 46 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 The Democratic Domination in Romania: NGOs, Procedural Politics and Anti-communism Antoine HEEMERYCK “Spiru Haret” University Abstract: The aim of the present article is to consider the viewpoint that the dominant NGOs in the field of democratisation are ideological actors working in harmony with the relations of domination on global scale and that, paradoxically, their objective is to emancipate from a peripheral position. To support this idea, I shall take the example of the largest NGO in the field of democratisation in Romania without limiting the analysis solely to this organism. In the first instance I shall describe its profile and sketch a few articulations with his immediate social and political environment. Then I shall make a review of its activities. I shall focus on the discourses and representations that legitimise its actions and position in the Romanian society. The political foundations of technology used by NGOs and their political enterprise will emerge thereafter more clearly. I intend to show that democratisation reproduces the pattern of a symbolic integration in the world. Keywords: globalisation, NGO, democracy, anti-communism, political domination, Romania. Since the fall of communism, the countries of Eastern Europe are the subject of an intense campaign of democratisation. The European Union and the member States, as well as the USA, monitor acutely both the road of “transition” to democracy and the market economy. We can identify in this concern an injunction to follow those patterns of society established in the Western world. The desire to impose a political framework under the guise of exporting democracy, which is perhaps more easily identifiable in the case of the post-communist countries of Europe, is a manifestation of the most important changes occurred in the relations of domination in the world. Post-communist countries are actually captive of the redeployment of power relations in the wake of the end of the Cold War. NATO’s and EU’s enlargement clearly illustrates this trend. The exported model of governmentality, in the sense forged by Michel Foucault1, takes place in this dynamics of changes. It assumes an inequality between institutions exporting a model of “development” and dependent nation-States, which are supposed to assimilate these models. Among the standards that shape the balance of power, democracy and human rights have become an operator of hierarchy between societies through a virtual worldwide projection. The breakthrough comes as a corollary to the end of the doctrine of state sovereignty in favour of other political actors, such as multilateral institutions, regions, cities, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), transnational networks and 1 Michel FOUCAULT, Sécurité, territoire, population, Cours au Collège de France 1977-1978, Gallimard-Seuil, Paris, 2004. 47 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 other private corporations1. Thus, democracy and human rights are now more than the mere representation of a set of practices and political systems. Here, by standard I mean the dominant theoretical framework and the “right” management of the “good” society that respects more or less the internationally promoted ideological forms of governance. The standard policy goes hand in hand with other norms such as market economy, transparency, respect for minority rights, children’s and women’s rights, etc. On this matter, any society which does not meet the contours of this pattern is considered to be marginal or even pathologic. This point is confirmed, for example, by the recurrent use of the terms of “shock therapy” and “transition”. These standards are also instruments of coercion. Their use and validity are closely linked to the fact that states and their economies are heavily dependent on Western donors (multilateral donors included). Furthermore, these standards are also validated locally, because of the existence of a horizon of plural expectations. For the population, the fall of communism has represented a breath of fresh air generating disproportionate expectations in the future. In this engineering, NGOs occupy a prominent place2. They are responsible for ensuring the incorporation of the standards of democracy and the rule of law. They are considered instruments of the extraction of pathology and societal deviance. They also serve as an indicator of “good governance” and their function is to monitor public institutions and expose their abuses – to the multilateral institutions and the media. A priori, a reflection on these organisations is pertinent to the study of new forms of (political and social) commitment and collective action in the sphere of democratisation, citizenship and human rights. After the fall of the communist regime which had banned and suppressed all forms of collective mobilisation and political pluralism, we could anticipate and expect effervescence in this field. In this context, Romania has a very interesting sociological profile. Romania is regarded as a marginal region of Europe. Very often this society is severely criticised in the discourses of Western diplomats. And at the same time, her citizens who emigrated in the West play the role of actual foreign threat. Under these circumstances, local NGOs are situated in between the aspirations of the indigenous population and an obligation of compliance vis-à-vis their Western donors – two political trends that may be contradictory. The aim of this article is to consider the viewpoint that the dominant NGOs in the field of democratisation are ideological actors working in harmony with the relations of domination on global scale and that, paradoxically, their objective is to emancipate from a peripheral position. To support this idea, I shall take the example of the largest NGO in the field of democratisation in Romania without limiting the analysis to this singular enterprise3. In the first instance I shall describe its profile and sketch a few articulations with its immediate social and political environment. Then I shall make a review of its activities. I shall focus on the discourses and representations that legitimise its actions and position in the Romanian society. The political foundations of technology used by NGOs and their political enterprise will emerge thereafter more clearly. I 1 Bertrand BADIE, La Fin des territoires, Fayard, Paris, 1995; Idem, Un monde sans souveraineté, Fayard, Paris, 1999. 2 Antoine HEEMERYCK, “Idéologies et pratiques des ONG: pour une problématisation générale et comparative”, Romania Review of Political Sciences and International Relations, Vol. VII, No. 1, 2010, pp. 105-124. 3 This article is based on a two-year research field. Idem, L’importation démocratique en Roumanie, L’Harmattan, Paris, 2010. 48 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 intended to show that democratisation reproduces the pattern of a symbolic integration in the world. To treat this matter as part of an article implies to deliberately ignore a significant number of minor differences between the various players in the field of democratisation fostered by NGOs and between different countries. However, the NGO’s programs are almost invariable because its donors are the same all over the exUSSR and Central and Eastern Europe. 1. THE NGOs IN THE DEMOCRATIC DOXA Civil society is not homogeneous. Au contraire. In mass-media, civil society is composed at most of a dozen NGOs which speak in the name of the whole civil society. In this perspective, civil society is a fiction, unified and moulded with the aid of massmedia. In reality, this is a fringe of NGOs, those that have implemented long term media strategies term and have had the possibility to strengthen these relationships. They are in fact at the top of the hierarchy of NGOs and civil society. In this small group, which also covers interpersonal social networks, the NGOs specialised in democratisation and the protection of human rights are the most prevalent. Let us mention just some of the most notable: the Pro-Democracy Association (PDA), the Romanian Association for the Defence of Human Rights-Helsinki Committee, the Academic Society of Romania, Freedom House Romania, Transparency International Romania and the Open Society Foundation (OSF-Soros). PDA has the largest structure in terms of logistics. The association has thirty branches covering the entire territory of Romania. PDA was founded in August 1990 by university professors from the city of Brasov at the instigation of the National Democratic Institute (NDI) after that institution had supervised the first elections in post-communist Romania. NDI represents with the IRI (International Republican Institute) one of the “four pillars” of U.S. foreign policy1. The internal organisation of PDA and its modes of action, like those of other NGOs, champions of democratisation, are closely inspired by the abovementioned institute2. The organisation was created to ensure the correctness of the electoral processes in a context of civil violence and political uncertainty. Today it is the largest organisation in the field of democratisation in Romania. On an international and transnational scale, it is part of the European Network of Election Monitoring Organization (ENEMO3) that acts both in Eastern Europe and in Central Asian countries and which in recent years played a very important role in all the revolutions, from Ukraine to Central Asia4. Officially, the targets of its actions are the laws, the constitution, public institutions, political parties and the citizens. In this respect, PDA meets perfectly the principles of intervention advocated by the National Democratic Institute (NDI), which 1 With the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organisations (AFL-CIO). 2 Antoine HEEMERYCK, “La démocratisation de l’intérieur: l’exemple d’une ONG en Roumanie”, Le journal des anthropologues, No. 129, 2012, pp. 223-237. 3 http://www.enemo.eu/ 4 Bernard HOURS, “NGOs in the Service of Global Governance: the Case of Uzbekistan”, Economical and Political Weekly, Vol. XLIII, No. 28, 2008, pp. 67-73. 49 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 has a response plan including: citizen participation, democratic governance, elections, local government, the development of political parties, etc. NDI does not have a very different perspective from the other institutions such as USAID or NED, which are the two big platforms delivering aid for the development of democracy and civil society. If these programs seem rather abstract and flexible, the fact remains that they reduce the space of possibilities in terms of collective action and instil a structure of changes with its thinkable and its unthought-of. The philosophy of its forms of action is rooted in a conception of constitutional transition to democracy. Obviously, any democracy needs strong institutions. However, this is not a condition for democracy, but a part of the democratisation process. The whole action of PDA is based on this vision of societal change. Several causes can be expounded as to explain this internalisation. First of all, the NGO is entirely founded by European donors and (above all) an American one. To obtain these funds, the organisation must conform to the assumptions of its donors or it risks being deprived of funding. This organisation, like all the other important organisations in this area, is financially dependent and ideologically subordinated. The uncritical adoption of these programs is due to fact that the members of the organisation had no other methods when the organisation had been founded. Even if there were questions about how to manage their actions, they were quickly forgotten. Also, the relationship of domination does not encourage the members who have internalised the stigma of belonging to communism to challenge the engineering of democracy promotion. Democracy, as political model and “global commodity” to export1, needs no justification. If you are against or do call into question democracy promotion then you are a populist or a defender of dictatorship. This is one of the characteristics of the democratic (norm) domination. Considering some examples of programs run by PDA should lead us to a better understanding of the particular perspective of this representative organisation and show that its work is conceived and organised according to the philosophy of its donors. 2. THE DEMOCRATIC TECHNOLOGY The first aim of the NGO we are dealing with was to monitor the electoral processes. In 1990, its network structure allowed it to be present in all the major cities of Romania. Since then, evidence of frauds, dysfunctions and failures were numerous and repetitive. They provide PDA with legitimacy without which it would be difficult for this association to enforce its actions and its high level of professionalism. These true accusations were widely appreciated by the donors that clearly support the NGO; it does not hesitate to instrument these relations as leverage on political institutions. The activists involved in the “Orange Revolution” in Ukraine, as well as those of Central Asia and the Caucasus2 were trained by members of PDA. The results of Ukraine, as well as those obtained in Romania showed that the normalisation of the electoral process was Idem, “Les marchandises morales globales ou le blanchiment du capitalisme”, in Evelyne BAUMAN, Laurent BAZIN, Pépita OULD-AHMED, Pascale PHELINAS, Monique SELIM, Richard SOBEL (eds), Anthropologues et économistes face à la globalisation, L’Harmattan, Paris, pp. 77-86. 2 which has never been one (this is clearly a normalisation of the electoral process) 1 50 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 not only a normalisation: elections have a tendency to be exploited to justify interference from the West in the national political processes. At the local level, politics, media and NGOs know how to use the fears of manipulation in an attempt to direct the votes of citizens. During the presidential and legislative elections of 2004, PDA continued to shake the trappings of the coup (by the Social Democratic Party, an opponent of the “Justice and Truth” alliance) to secure legislative changes. PDA even threatened to withdraw from monitoring the elections, which spurred the mobilisation of Western diplomats and local political parties. The recounting and checking of the ballots proved that the electoral frauds were rather insignificant. Nevertheless, the candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), Adrian Nastase, was largely disadvantaged by the slogans of the NGO, even if the SDP had shown little consideration for the respect of human rights and freedom of speech during the 2000-2004 mandates. Pursuing this election monitoring, PDA has been trying to promote a transformation of the electoral systems in Romania. The organisation tries to impose a compensatory mixed member voting system. It shares this project with several political parties (recommended initially by the IRI1) which, however, could not bring the reform to an end. To do this, the association led several petition campaigns. These projects have resulted in the establishment of a parliamentary committee in 2000 that finally refused to go through this draft legislation, despite having harvested about 100,000 signatures. The commission received the expertise of the President of the Academic Society of Romania (which is also a NGO) to support a projection of election results. She argued, in contradiction with the president of PDA – a professor of political sciences –, that the political opposition could no longer enter the parliament if the reform of the voting system were to be adopted. In 2007, after a long series of attempts to take over this project, a variant of the uninominal voting system was submitted by the President of Romania, Traian Basescu (Democratic Liberal Party – right-wing), to an unsuccessful referendum2. Shortly after, The National Liberal Party (NLP – right-wing) auspiciously introduced another variant by single-member parliamentary, despite the lack of legitimacy of the polls. The municipal and departmental elections took place a few months later: dozens of mayors involved in corruption were re-elected in the first round (June 16, 2008). To put it briefly, for the NGOs, to change society means to modify the political voting system and do that in the absence of the citizens’ consent. This is the first clue that indicates the proximity of public institutions and policies and a little disrespect for citizens concerned about a reform that does not seem to reflect a real social issue. There seems to be a gap or distance between political parties and NGOs and society. PDA is also an active member of the “Coalition for a Clean Parliament”3, which was created at the initiative of the Academic Society of Romania, led by a political Thomas CAROTHERS, Assessing Democracy Assistance: The Case of Romania, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, 1996. 2 26.45% of the electorate showed up to vote, 21.51% of those present voted in favour of the reform (Source: Central Election Bureau). The rate of participation in the elections of the representatives in the European Parliament which took place the same day was of 29.46%. 3 The coalition is composed of the Civic Alliance, the Association of Students of Political Sciences, Freedom House Romania, Transparency International Romania, the Centre for Independent Journalism, the Foundation for Open Society, the APADOR-CH, the Association of the Romanian Institute. The coalition is funded by the Balkan Trust Fund (25,000 dollars), the Soros Foundation for an Open Society (23,500 dollars) and Freedom House (13,000 dollars). 1 51 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 journalist, professor, former correspondent for Le Monde, trainee at National Endowment for Democracy and finally invited to Harvard University. The coalition’s objective is to eliminate the political field agents who do not meet four strict criteria: 1 No business relationship allowed with public institutions while the candidate held an influential position in a public institution, a clause extending even to his/her family members, 2 - The non-migration from a political party to another during the same mandate, 3 - The absence of coherency between the personal patrimonies reported by the candidate and his/her real personal patrimonial assets. To be quite specific, let’s say that in Romania the law constrains elected officials to declare their patrimonial assets. This does not guarantee the veracity of this statement, usually falsified through various tricks1. The sanctions applied for the violations of this law are scarce. 4 - Finally, the candidate who worked for the former Securitate (the former political police) and/or was member of the Romanian Communist Party ought to be banned from party lists. This is what is locally called the deconspirare (literally: “dis-conspiracy”) of the Securitate and the lustration of the former members of the communist party. Political parties have used this operation to exclude some of their members who practiced extortion too visibly, thereby gaining some credibility easily. These criteria are in fact a symbolic framework of unification. Here, corruption and communism complete each other and overlook the principle of universal suffrage, acting as an additional attribute. It is also a continuation of the metaphysical anti-communist discourse of political parties on the right-wing of the political stage in which NGOs members and intellectuals have largely participated since the fall of Ceausescu. Democratisation, therefore, contains the idea of a trial of communism. It seems to be a legacy originating from the cold war period. The aim of this program of the President of the Academic Society of Romania is also to do propaganda in favour of the candidates who benefit of her preference. Did she not declare: “We have no political leader, it is boring when you are abroad (in the West) to always have to answer the following question: which candidate of the opposition should the West put its money on?”2 Of course, this personal opinion is relevant, because it is representative of the political aspirations of upper middle class. Some compromising omissions on the part of the coalition have also been noticed by the media. They concerned only candidates of the right-wing parties. The issue of political migration from one party to another can be addressed with certain pragmatism by a local elected representative even, if it is clear that municipalities are enterprises where you can get rich quickly by illegal practices. The local political powers must have often the support of the County Council for their projects and to obtain the necessary training to have access to the structural funds provided by the European Union. Let’s note that the Coalition carefully avoids the question of the significant migration of NGOs to political parties too. This could unveil a conflict of interests. Transparency is another angle of action of these organisations. PDA seeks to monitor the implementation of a law concerning the transparency of public institutions Some uncles and aunts of political agents became suddenly rich, sometimes unwittingly, following the adoption of this law, and even the children of certain politicians have become the happy owners of apartments in Bucharest. 2 “Professional life in Romania is a perpetual confusion”, http://www.stiinte-politice.ro/pippidi.htm 1 52 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 (544/2001). This program has to be seen as a part of the necessity of adapting Romanian society to the global market and at the same time as a limitation of the corruption practiced by predatory elites1. Let’s remember that transparency is a prerequisite condition for the attractiveness of foreign investment and, as shown recently by history, has the property of being totally ineffective against financial crises. The NGO has greatly facilitated the understanding of the law by public institutions after they have been tested. Locally, the law had remained unknown, while at the central level institutions have achieved remarkable rates of refusal. But in many cases, the ineffectiveness of such a measure has been proven since, for example, many contracts with private companies cannot be disclosed to the public because this comes under the public documentation (actually not public) and not under public information (public). In this case, the administrative and judicial procedures are lengthy and costly, and it is not certain that they guarantee a positive result. Generally, this public-private business information masks the grabbing of public or/and private resources that are not subject to prosecution, and it exhibits the fact that the justice system and the administration are also corruptible. Some conclusions can now be drawn. We realise that programs, driven from the outside, are imposed on a social logic without fundamentally challenging it. In the end, it is perhaps the simplicity of programming, despite its technical formulation, that these examples show. At last, the association is trying to promote the “youth” (law students, or students who study political sciences and humanities) in public institutions, through professional courses required in the university curriculum. These courses allow NGOs to find cheap labour. The presidents of these NGOs are mostly senior lecturers or professors who teach in various universities. This indicates a structural link between universities and NGOs. The association organises games, such as “youth parliament” where students are invited to play MPs surrounded by actual members who can make on this occasion their recruitment. Young people can also win a paid internship sometimes in a public institution. Most of these students see their investment in a NGO as an opportunity to find employment reasonably well paid and, for those who are more ambitious this represents a stage in their career. It is the idea of purification of the political import of new blood that stands behind this action, because “young people” – playing a pivotal role in the idea of volunteerism and solidarity – are not supposed to have experienced communism or have experienced too little of it to have been deeply affected. Yet from the perspective of students, it is quite often only a strategy to integrate themselves in the labour market. Anyway, this kind of attitude is not typical for a youth eager to help the others, on the contrary, it contradicts the image that the NGOs must maintain, but one facing the harsh reality of an unstructured labour market. Antoine HEEMERYCK, “Gouvernance démocratique, État et ONG en Roumanie”, L’Homme et la société, No. 159, 2006, pp. 175-190. 1 53 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 3. COMMUNIST ENEMIES AND OBSTACLES ON THE ROAD TO EMANCIPATION The programs of democratisation run by NGOs, illustrated herein by those of PDA, show a distinct internalisation of the donor’s requirements on a technical level, but also incorporate the position of subordinate actor played by Romania on a global level. These actors have appropriated the technology to make these political tools theirs. The presidents of NGOs are often senior lecturers or professors of sociology, journalism and political analysts. Their professional practices are adequate with the demands of the donors and fully meet the media formats. Nonetheless, the technical dimension crosses a line of separation, using history, collective identity and international standards, between the (former) communists and democrats. To become a democracy means, in this perspective, to root out communism from the community, as if you were removing a tumour from a diseased body. The means for doing that are simple: by cleansing politics of corrupt officials and communism. The optic is oriented to institutions and especially to political parties, the deliberative institutions of the government and legislation. It is important to understand that there are in Romania practices of corruption reaching surprisingly high levels. In this regard, the NGO does not need to make enemies. Evidence of lack of credibility of public institutions (e.g. parliament) and of the political class on the whole given by the polls is extremely negative and constant1, even though it is surely not the only cause of this disrepute. Let us also remember this truism: a large proportion of the agents engaged in the political field is made up of former members of the Communist Party. All or nearly all have been trained in the institutions of the state party during the communist period. Hence the charge of collaboration with the former communist government is anchored in the political arena (including in civil society). The academics who govern NGOs were also trained in the same schools. This highlights the instrumental dimension underlying the anti-communist sanction. It should be noted that some of the rules promoted by NGOs are not applied to international aid institutions and corruption can be perfectly legal or legalised even in the largest democracies of the world. In the Western world, the collusion between the business owning the media and politicians for example is a very sensitive problem including the financing of election campaigns, the orientations of political programs and the submission of the media consensus. In other words, the democratisation of the world is not necessarily and completely a matter of democracy. These NGOs are for the most part unable to take this dimension into account and to adapt their strategy. Moreover, these organisations are unable to understand the continuity of the process of privatisation of the state by predatory elites otherwise than by a repeated accusation of belonging to communism. Additionally, they are incapable of understanding the break in the patterns of accumulation of wealth resulting from the privatisation of the state and policy reforms promoted by international institutions. Any questioning of the donor’s programs would place the organisation in the camp of “populists”, “traditionalists” or “communists” – since democratisation is democratic, anything that challenges these programs can only be 1 Open Society Foundation-Soros, Barometer of public opinion, Institute for Public Policy, Bucharest, 2005. 54 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 corrupted by a more or less acute despotic spirit – and would endanger its survival. Moreover, corruption in Romania is not the domain of the elites; in elites it’s just where it is the most visible. The rule of law, and specifically the labour law, is a semi-fictional reality. On a more general level, these fights are extensions of political struggles in the field of NGOs. The proximity between the political and intellectual circles is a fact which cannot be denied. The presidents of the largest NGOs are in fact the first to take the path leading to political parties, and reforms are significant financial and symbolic issues for these organisations. Because the Social Democratic Party is considered the main heir of communism, providing tacit or explicit support to political parties opposed to it or integrating them may be regarded as an act of democratisation. It is an act of “morality” that fits into the binomial victim/executioner of communism. In this respect, being antiSDP is being on the same side with the victims against their former executioners. For example, many members of NGOs have supported and have been part of the Democratic Convention, which won the parliamentary and presidential elections in 1996 against the SDP. The political involvement of NGOs shows the gap between the aspirations of the members of NGOs, their teaching of democracy and citizens who do not vote all the time as they should1. This shows that NGOs are far from being politically neutral organisations. The metaphysical anti-communism, central among NGOs of democratisation, is also a way to own relations of domination. Romania is indeed one member of the former “evil empire” (according to the words of Ronald Reagan) now incorporated into the “first world”. Democratisation takes this view as a compliance meant to get rid of the communist past embedded deep within the collective self. However, one obstacle stands in the way of this liberation: the citizens. NGOs consider the Romanian citizens as individuals unable to understand their actions. In particular, “the incapacity [of citizens] to make decisions” is denigrated, polls/confidence indicators weigh heavily in the representations of NGOs activists. NGOs are still among the less appreciated institutions in contrast with the Church and the army2 which are the most respected by the people. All of them believe that the citizens have no confidence in NGOs and do not understand the meaning of their projects. These surveys operate in the manner of self-fulfilling prophecies: a reality that is more a belief in the survey instrument and its interpretations as rather rigorous analysis than reality. But this belief will lead or support a variety of representations of the imagined majority. This institutional ideology has the advantage that it enables organisations to build legitimacy by hiding the issue of representativeness that seems embedded in the unfortunate reputation of political agents. If we consider that citizens are incapable of behaving like citizens, then their poor education is justified. Therefore, the people must not be mature politically, so that the organisations might claim the status of intermediary institutions. The citizens can also be victims of communism and communists, today as yesterday. A victim is not a political actor in the full sense of the term. It is also a way of 1 Ion Iliescu (Social Democrat Party) was elected three times president of Romania (1990-1992, 1992-1996 and 2000-2004). 2 Ibidem. 55 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 disempowering the citizens, of making this concept an empty envelope, of denying any ability to think and say what society should be and to enter politics. The victim of communism, as well as the communist are the two sides of the same coin: the individual through the prism of representations of these NGOs. The instrumented accusation of being communist may extend almost to all the Romanian population as a whole. It is in the nature of totalitarian regimes to subdue the entire population by using the most violent or insidious ways. That is why people are always compromised, and heroes are rarely pure and perfect. The actors manipulate the indelible mark of the communist past. From a foreign imposition, the standard of democracy, as part of the issues of lustration and memories, becomes an instrument that is to discredit the people. NGOs will be able to claim an upright position and assume the role of guides, bringers of the democratic lights for the good citizens. Because the denial of having belonged to the dictatorship is imperative in order to build the legitimacy of defining what democracy is, this operation is similar to the designation of a scapegoat: the first being an enemy – political parties – the second an obstacle – the people. Together, they represented “a field of adversity” following Foucault’s expression1. Therefore, being close to the foreigner is primordial to these NGOs. This closeness is a form of claim, but a manipulation of the objective dependence on the donor. The question is not in itself entirely new, but the context in which it is restated and reformulated is. Romania is a nation-state recently established (1848), which occupied a position near the peripheral parts of the great empires. The question about the sense of belonging to the West/East haunted the Romanian elite in their desire for independence and constitution of the nation. This issue was extremely acute under N. Ceausescu too. In the new post-Cold War area, NGOs as well as the dominant intellectuals need to legitimate a position of “dominant subordinate” by getting symbolically close to the West. It is relevant in this respect the fact that the members of NGOs perceive symbolic retributions only insofar as they get recognition from Western institutions (EU internship in the USA, etc.). The authority of the presidents of these organisations is based largely on this vision of the world. They have degrees and work experience spent in Paris, New-York, Washington, in short, in what really looks like centres of civilisation. They represent a link with the West. In this configuration, the members of these NGOs set themselves in a position to claim a membership in the imagined community of professionals of democracy by using of a virtual solidarity. The dilemma of belonging to the world and the desire to bridge the distance maintained by exogenous assignment are precariously overcome. But the mission of the NGO is legitimate and should be continued because of its frailty. The stigma assigned to the people should help build a close relation with foreign countries (the “West”). But this merger is destroyed by the imagination of the reception of these ideas in the population (such as virtual entity). To create this otherness with other people labelled as “Communists” is the precarious development of a close 1 Michel FOUCAULT, Naissance de la biopolitique: Cours au collège de France 1978-1979, Gallimard-Seuil, Paris, 2004. 56 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 relationship with foreign countries. The stigma is transposed and the symbolic relation with the dominant remains. This negative otherness cannot be fully materialised and become ruptured. To do so would require the fracturing of the national community. Hence, it is something impossible to achieve. This horizon should be overcome, but it is unsurpassable. 4. CONCLUSION This analysis of democratisation via NGOs, their polities and their representation demonstrates that the transformation of the relations of domination on a global scale is of prime importance to understand the implications of standardisation policies at local level. These standards are abstract and are the result of power relations in the world. NGOs are in this configuration one of the most important players in the process of political regulation. While their ability to challenge and standardise is obvious, they reproduce at their level the relations of domination of the global democratic idiom. They are in spiral logics because they adopted the thinking of donors and made it an object of social distinction and legitimacy. In this logic, wanting to free itself implies the acceptance of inferiority based on a past membership to the dictatorship. The subjection is accepted insofar as it allows to feed the desire for emancipation. This is a reinvestment in the imaginary (using Gérard Althabe’s concept1). We should note that the ideas of democratisation and NGOs have in common the attempt to delegitimise the population. In these perceptions, the citizen is a hollow body, apathetic and subject of abstract rights. The role of political actor is denied to him. The same applies to the issue of participation that is never taken into account, otherwise than in a logic in which it comes “naturally” as a deduction for a transformation of institutions. Yet these NGOs exist for this population, at least in theory. Since he is not capable of democracy, the citizen cannot provide the proof of citizenship competence required by a democratic regime. This situation is similar to a socio-political impasse. The question still remains: is there a way out of this straitjacket? Bibliography ALTHABE, Gérard, Oppression et libération dans l’imaginaire. Les communautés villageoises de la côte orientale de Madagascar, Maspéro, Paris, 1969. BADIE, Bertrand, La Fin des territoires, Fayard, Paris, 1995. BADIE, Bertrand, Un monde sans souveraineté, Fayard, Paris, 1999. CAROTHERS, Thomas, Assessing Democracy Assistance: The Case of Romania, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, 1996. FOUCAULT, Michel, Sécurité, territoire, population, Cours au Collège de France 19771978, Gallimard-Seuil, Paris, 2004. 1 Gérard ALTHABE, Oppression et libération dans l’imaginaire. Les communautés villageoises de la côte orientale de Madagascar, Maspéro, Paris, 1969. 57 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 FOUCAULT, Michel, Naissance de la biopolitique: Cours au collège de France 19781979, Gallimard-Seuil, Paris, 2004. HEEMERYCK, Antoine, “La démocratisation de l’intérieur: l’exemple d’une ONG en Roumanie”, Le journal des anthropologues, No. 129, 2012, pp. 223-237. HEEMERYCK, Antoine, “Idéologies et pratiques des ONG: pour une problématisation générale et comparative”, Romania Review of Political Sciences and International Relations, Vol. VII, No. 1, 2010, pp. 105-124. HEEMERYCK, Antoine, L’importation démocratique en Roumanie, L’Harmattan, Paris, 2010. HEEMERYCK, Antoine, “Gouvernance démocratique, État et ONG en Roumanie” L’Homme et la société, No. 159, 2006, pp. 175-190. HOURS Bernard, “NGOs in the Service of Global Governance: the Case of Uzbekistan”, Economical and Political Weekly, Vol. XLIII, No. 28, 2008, pp. 67-73. HOURS Bernard, “Les marchandises morales globales ou le blanchiment du capitalisme" in Evelyne BAUMAN, Laurent BAZIN, Pépita OULD-AHMED, Pascale PHELINAS, Monique SELIM, Richard SOBEL (eds), Anthropologues et économistes face à la globalisation, L’Harmattan, Paris, pp. 77-86. Open Society Foundation-Soros, Barometer of public opinion, Institute for Public Policy, Bucharest, 2005. 58 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 Democracy and the “Mystic” of the State Gelu SAB U “Hyperion” University of Bucharest Abstract: This article deals with a significant debate from the interwar period, which has involved some of the most important Romanian publicists of the moment. The promoters of the debate were the journals Gândirea and Viața Românească, and the main protagonists were Constantin Stere and Petre Pandrea. The subject of the debate refers to Romania's relation to modernity and to the path it had to choose in order to develop. While Stere and the people grouped around him were partisans of democracy and British-inspired constitutionalism, the followers of Gândirea journal promoted organicism, autochthonism and the state's primacy over the individual. Keywords: authoritarian, Constantin Stere, democracy, inter-war Romania, young generation, Petre Pandrea. 1. INTRODUCTION The present study proposes to closely follow one of the most significant ideological debates of the inter-war autochthonous public space. It is about the polemic between Constantin Stere and Petre Pandrea (the publicist name of Petre Marcu-Bal 1), as its main protagonists and which took place through the journals to which the two polemists contributed, namely Viața Românească (Romanian Life) and Gândirea (Thinking). The polemic covers almost completely the third decade of the 20th century (1922-29), its most fervent period being between the years 1927-29. The significance of the dispute is given both by the subject’s importance and by the number and quality of those directly or indirectly involved in it. The subject is crucial: Romania’s relation to modernity and how the Romanian society, through its elites, understands to dispose of the various failures of modernisation and provide solutions for it. Beside the two already mentioned protagonists, this polemic also involved a good part of the time’s cultural and intellectual elite: Nichifor Crainic, Mihai Ralea, Garabet IbrĖileanu, C. RĖdulescu-Motru, Nae Ionescu, Mircea Eliade, Vasile BĖncilĖ, Ion Petrovici, Camil Petrescu, Petre ComĖrnescu, Paul Zarifopol, etc. The polemic develops on the background of change and conflict between generations. After the accomplishment of the Unity in 1918 and the formation of Great Romania, the young inter-war generation will be, as it has been said, in search of a new ideal for the Romanian society2. This search, consonant with the cultural atmosphere in The articles in Gândirea journal are signed as Petre Marcu-Bal . I will use the surname Petre Pandrea, because this is the name under which the author has remained known to posterity. 2 Here is how Mircea Eliade defines the values of the young generation: “We wanted to win those values which are not born out of political economy, nor technique, nor parliamentarism. Pure, spiritual, absurdly 1 59 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 Europe at that time, would inevitably lead to the denial of the old generation by the young, denial by which the latter were seeking to define themselves and be separated from “the old”. The most prominent attempts of orienting the young generation consist in the series of articles published by Mircea Eliade in Cuvântul (The Word) and titled “Spiritual itinerary”1, and also in “The White Lily’s Manifest”, published by Gândirea and signed by three young rebels: Sorin Pavel, Ion Nestor and Petre Pandrea2. 2. THE DEMOCRATISM OF CONSTANTIN STERE The polemic itself begins with a series of articles signed by Petre Pandrea, titled “The Mystic of the State” and published in Gândirea journal, starting from no.7-8, year 1927, articles in which Pandrea straightforwardly criticises the legalist and constitutionalist conception presented by Stere in several articles published in Viața Românească in19223. The role played by Stere in the development of social ideologies of 20th century Romania is known by now4. Born in tsarist Bessarabia, and emigrated in Romania due to the adherence to the socialist movement, he is one of the authors who will try to associate two of the great political ideologies of the time: liberalism and socialism5. In other words, we could say that Stere is a liberal as far as political rights are concerned, and an adept of socialist ideas as regards economic development6. Anyway, Stere was a true democrat, believing that only through the extension of political rights to all citizens could the Romanian society evolve. The universal vote, the impropriation of peasants and local autonomies are the reforms considered by Stere necessary for the accomplishment of poporanism, that rural type of democracy which is, in his view, the most appropriate formula for Romania’s progress. Stere affirms these opinions as early as 1906, since the foundation of the Viața Românească journal, resuming them at the end of the war, in the new political context of Great Romania’s existence. Thus, in the third number of the journal he will publish an spiritual values. The values of Christianity.” (Mircea ELIADE, “Itinerariu spiritual”, I, Itinerariu spiritual. Scrieri de tinerețe. 1927, Humanitas, Bucure ti, 2003, p. 266). 1 It is a series of 12 articles published in Cuvântul journal, year III, No. 857, 860, 862, 867, 874, 885, 889, 903, 911, 915, 924 and 928, 1927. These articles were defining for the spirit of the new generation, and it was after their publication that Mircea Eliade was proclaimed the leader of the young generation. In the present study I indicated the articles gathered as Mircea Eliade, Itinerariu spiritual…cit., 2003. 2 “Manifestul Crinului Alb” was published in Gândirea journal, No. 8-9, 1928, pp. 311-317. 3 See the articles “Suveranitatea na ionalĖ i constituanta”, “Suprema ia legii” and “Garan ia drepturilor cetĖ eneti în ante-proiectul de Constitu ie al Partidului ĖrĖnesc” published in No. 9, 10, 11 of the Viața Românească journal, year 1922. 4 See the studies of Zigu ORNEA, Viața lui Constantin Stere, 2 vol., Cartea RomâneascĖ, Bucure ti, 1989-1991; and Poporanismul, Minerva, Bucure ti, 1972. 5 See here the series of polemical articles of Aurel C. Popovici, entitled “Socialism i liberalism” (I and II, published in the journal Sămănătorul, No. 23 i 24, 1908), where the publicist from Banat tries to prove that socialism and liberalism, which are reunited in Stere’s doctrine, are actually contradictory. Also, in the polemic with Stere, Pandrea speaks about the syncretic nature of poporanist ideology: “There are three influences which meet in a completely arbitrary manner: 1) the Russian utopia and the idea of the intellectual’s duty and sacrifice for the emancipation of the people. [...] 2) Marxism and the materialist conception of history and 3) the Diceyan, Manchesterian, libertarian, illuminist and progressive constitutionalism.” (Petre PANDREA, “Spiritul critic i mistica statului istoric”, IV, “Izvoarele poporanismului criticist”, Gândirea, No. 12, 1928, p. 505. 6 See the study of C. STERE “Social-democratism sau poporanism?”, Scrieri politice și filozofice, Domino, Bucure ti, 2005, pp. 169-353 and the Introduction of Victor Rizescu at the same volume, “Populismul i celelalte marxisme române ti”, pp. 5-57. 60 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 article titled “Local Organisation”1, in which he discusses the organisation of the Romanian administrative system. A first observation shows us the instability and the defective way in which this system was working: since 1864, in the approximatively 40 years which had passed since the embracing of modern administrative organisation in Romania, there were no less than 19 projects of modification and reorganisation of rural areas, which meant a media of one project in about 2 years2. The causes of this severe instability are many. First, the disparity between the modern and liberal Constitution of 1866 and the legislation adopted afterwards: “In 1866 the central institutions of English constitutionalism (the Belgian Constitution) were introduced and our constituents understood that local organisation, borrowed from France in the most detestable age of its public life, was not compatible with these central institutions which, as Gneist has strongly shown, are in England a development, an excrescence of local autonomies. For these reasons, the Constitution of 1866 prescribes the reorganisation of local administration in conformity with the principles of autonomy and decentralisation (Art. 37 and 107). These constitutional provisions have remained a mere dead letter and, consequently, our parliamentarism is groundless, suspended in thin air”3. Therefore, in Romania there were no real decentralisation and local autonomy, which form the basis of an authentic democratic regime. The formation of local autonomies had also been blocked by the disaccord between the administrative “form”, copied after the French model in Cuza’s age, and Romanian realities. The greatest harm which the administrative enactment of 1864 had produced is, in Stere's opinion, the foundation of the commune and the abolition of the village as administrative unity, because the village is the sole “centre of population, spontaneously formed throughout history, under the pressure of economic needs, or of the geographic relief, or of the sharing of fields in agriculture, of waters, of forests”4, etc. Villages are therefore natural developments, in time, according to the needs of the respective communities. Communes present the deficiency of being arbitrarily charted and sometimes of being too big, which is an obstacle for the formation of an authentic local community, given that the inhabitants of greater communes can’t even come to know each other5. This is the reason why the disappearance of the village as a basic administrative unity and the foundation of communes „leaves without a legal organisation precisely the live cells of the social organism, the villages, which, disregarded by the laws, are forced to spontaneously organise the land’s customs, according to secular traditions, more or less accidentally”6. Thus, the entire potential of political life which is found, locally speaking, at the basis of society, not only is not activated, but on the contrary, it is suffocated by an arbitrary administration. Because villages and hamlets don’t exist as “administrative units, the communal and county councils have a fictitious existence, with no attributions of self1 Viața Românească, No. 3, 1906, republished in the volume Constantin STERE, Scrieri, Minerva Bucure ti, 1979, pp. 353-364. 2 Ibidem, pp. 354-356. Stere proves that such reform projects don’t imply the improvement of local community’s life and of the administration’s activity, but aim at collecting taxes, by establishing the required number of contributors. 3 Ibidem, pp. 354-356. Stere proves that such reform projects don’t imply the improvement of local community’s life and of the administration’s activity, but aim at collecting taxes, by establishing the required number of contributors. 4 Ibidem, p. 359. 5 Ibidem, p. 359. C. Stere also proves that smaller communes are better and more efficiently administrated than bigger ones (Ibidem, pp. 358-359). 6 Ibidem, p. 356. 61 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 administrated citizenship, being mere bureaux of transmission for higher commands”1. This fact leads to an excessive bureaucracy of the administration and the mayor, “instead of being a trustful man of his fellow citizens, becomes a master”2 and an agent of the centre’s interests. Or, in this way, almost inevitably “the constitutional regime of Romania [is] falsified from its very roots”3, and parliamentarism, so criticised during the inter-war period, comes to be seen as an unhealthy excrescence of modernity which vitiates the normal development of the autochthonous social organism. To the fictitious existence of local autonomy, the abuses of functionaries are added, which are possible because the law does not provide efficient sanctions in their cases. The 29th article of the Constitution of 1866 asserts that “No prior authorisation is necessary to the harmed parts in order to keep a check on public functionaries for the acts of their administration”. This constitutional stipulation, according to which the abuses of functionaries can be investigated without any previous authorisation, is undoubtedly in the citizen’s service. Ambiguities appear when one relates to the articles from the Penal Code, which control the way in which the investigation can be carried out: “In the penal code, under the column “Attempts against freedom”, we find article 99, which on the one hand stipulates sanctions for “an arbitrary act which attacks individual freedom... or the Constitution of the country”, but immediately a paragraph follows, which adds that “when it is proven that he (the functionary) has carried out such an act by orders from his superiors... he should be defended from punishment, which in this case should apply only to the superiors who had given such orders”... . And on this scale of “superior who gives such orders” the poor citizen will arrive at the minister, whom, according to the Constitution, he can no longer sue, especially when it comes to “such orders”!4 Therefore, the functionary who has committed an abuse as a consequence of an order received from his superiors is thus relieved from his responsibility, which has to be looked for up the hierarchic scale. By such an endeavour one can easily arrive at the higher level, that of the minister, who, according to the Constitution, enjoys the benefits of immunity, being treated by “special rules”5. In the article “The Assurances of Civic Rights in the Ante-project of Constitution of the Peasants’ Party”6, C. Stere presents and analyses two alternative juridical mechanisms, the English and the French ones, which control the responsibility of public functionaries. While in the English system the functionary is responsible before the law as any other citizen, the French model contains the institution of the administrative legal department, which is the result of the association of the executive and the legal power. Romanian Constitution stipulates, as does also the Belgian one, the separation of powers in the state and doesn’t allow a control system similar to the French one. This is why, in the ante-project of Constitution elaborated by Stere, he proposes for Romania a solution that would combine elements from both systems of administrative law: the functionary to be judged in regular courts, like any other citizen, but the reparations which the abused citizen can ask in court to be judged by special courts, 1 2 3 4 5 6 Constantin STERE, “Suprema ia legii”, Viața Românească, No. 10, 1922, p. 15. Idem, Scrieri, p. 359. Ibidem, p. 17. Ibidem, p. 12. Cf. to the Article 29 of the Romanian Constitution, 1866. Article published in Viața Românească, No. 11, 1922, pp. 215-227. 62 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 independent from the government1. C. Stere is aware of the fact that the institutional and juridical change which would impose a real responsibility upon functionaries could face a strong contraposition from the political class: “Of course, the solution suggested will provoke noisy protests, under the pretext of them paralyzing the governing act. Subalterns to discuss the legality of their hierarchic superior’s orders? The men of state in Romania, used to omnipotence, will not be able to accept such abomination...”2. Apart from the inexistence of effective local autonomy and of real responsibility of the functionaries involved in the administrative act, Stere identifies another cause concurring to the draining of substance of the Romanian democracy: the administrative reorganisation after the Great Union in 1918. From his point of view the administrative regions had to correspond to the historical provinces and not to be arbitrarily charted, as it actually happened. The arbitrary administrative cut, which doesn’t take into account the spirit and tradition of each historical province does nothing but to forcibly impose certain realities which do not correspond to the state of facts. “We need not mechanic standardisation, but intimate union in thoughts and feelings, which can only emerge from the respect given to peculiarities and natural characteristics of each one, and from the truly free activity of all. Real power can never spring from the monotony of an exterior mechanisation, but only from the lively organic diversity”3. Here is a criticism of how the administrative union had taken place, precisely because the procedure was a technical, bureaucratic one, without paying attention to the local organic realities. Therefore, in Great Romania, according to Stere, we may speak of unification, but not of union. In conclusion, the lack of local autonomy, and of real responsibility for the administration’s functionaries, plus the arbitrary administrative charting lead, from Stere’s point of view, to a complete falsification of the Romanian public life. This falsification is most severe as it has given birth to a school “of political philosophy, which motivates the contraposition with all claims for legality and freedom with a view to consolidating the Romanian State”4. This is the most often invoked reason for the justification of all centralising measures. Stere thinks that this reason is but a pretext used by “the selfishness of a dominant class, which doesn’t resign in front of time’s demands”5. This is therefore about the interests of autochthonous oligarchy6, which refuses a large democratisation of the social corpus, precisely as this may lead to the loss of its privileges. However, beyond the immediate interests of the oligarchy, it is clear that a perspective of thought over the centralising state, like the one Stere points out, has existed, being well represented and having many adepts, especially in the inter-war period. One of the most important platforms of expression for this “school of thought” was the journal Gândirea, especially after the direction of the journal was taken over by Nichifor Crainic. For that matter, inside the pages of this journal there starts the polemic against Stere and his adepts gathered around the Viața Românească journal. A series of Constantin STERE, „Garan iile drepturilor cetĖ ene ti în Ante-proiectul de Constitu ie al Partidului ĖrĖnesc”, Viața Românească, No. 11, 1922, p. 226. 2 Ibidem, p. 226. 3 Idem, „Suprema ia legii”, Viața Românească, No. 10, 1922, p. 16. 4 Ibidem, p. 17. 5 Ibidem, p. 19. 6 For a presentation and a critical evaluation of the discourse on the oligarchy and modernity in inter-war Romania, see Victor RIZESCU, Tranziții discursive. Despre agende culturale, istorie intelectuală și onorabilitate ideologică după comunism, Corint, Bucure ti, 2012, chapter I, “Structuri, ideologii i lecturi sociologice”, pp. 21-170. 1 63 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 articles signed by Petre Pandrea and titled “The Mystic of the State” appears in the year 19271. The articles are directly criticising Stere’s concept of democracy and the reforms he is suggesting. 3. THE MYSTIC GENERATION AND THE PRESERVATION INSTINCT The phrase “mystic of the state” may seem strange to us, people of the 21st century, for whom the liberal separation between religion and politics has long been established. However, for inter-war people, who dreamed of reforming the politician through culture, morality and spirituality, the phrase is a familiar one. For that matter, the youth of the inter-war generation were terming themselves proudly as “the mystic generation”, relating precisely to the role they thought to be adequate to the spiritual, religious and cultural dimensions in the shaping of a new society2. From the way in which P. Pandrea uses this phrase, it can be proven that it has precise sources: this is about the French author Ernest Seillière, who writes at the beginning of the 20th century a work in 4 volumes, entitled “The Philosophy of Imperialism”, awarded by the French Academy3. As a matter of fact, Seillière, although not a star among his contemporaries4, is still a known author, with approximately 30 volumes written by then, in which he discusses about the political passions of the time: nationalism, racism, romanticism, democracy. Seillière’s novel perspective over the problem of political passions is given by the way he joins separate notions like the preservation instinct, mysticism and imperialism, which he gathers together in order to elaborate his philosophy of imperialism. “The desire to power” or “the will to power”, which for certain philosophers such as Hobbes or Nietzsche represents the essence of the human nature, are considered by Seillière to be expressions of the preservation instinct. From this instinct’s manifestation imperialism is naturally being born: “Le « désir de pouvoir» pour parler avec Hobbes, la Rochefoucauld, Helvétius, la «volonté de la puissance» analysée par Nietzsche, où l'impérialisme [...] est primordial et sans cesse actif dans l’être vivant (peut-être dans la matière elle-même). Il n'est guère en effet qu’un corollaire de l’instinct de conservation, car ce dernier instinct se voit bientôt averti par l’expérience vitale de ce fait que tout degré de puissance sur les êtres ou les choses augmente les chances de survie pour celui qui possède cette puissance. Or être c’est lutter ; et persister dans l’être ou vivre c’est Articles published in Gândirea journal, No. 7-8, 9, 10 and 11, 1927. Here are some of the features of this new generation, from M. Eliade’s perspective: “The dominant feature: a desire for a complete and authentic synthesis. This is why the critique of diletantism, the need for spiritual seriousness, the need of integrating the mystical experience, and the critique of that scientific and academic spirit ...” (Mircea ELIADE, Itinerariu spiritual…cit., p. 304). 3 The 4 volumes which the philosophy of imperialism consists of are titled La philosophie de l’impérialisme. Le comte de Gobineau et l’aryanisme historique (1903), La philosophie de l’impérialisme. Apollon ou Dionysos (1905), La philosophie de l’impérialisme. L’impérialisme démocratique (1907) and Le mal romantique: essai sur l’impérialisme irrationnel (1908). Ernest Seillière was ellected member of the French Academy in 1946. He left an important work behind, over 50 volumes of studies and essays on philosophy, political philosophy, literature, etc. 4 Here is the opinion expressed by Petre Pandrea about the French author: “Ernest Seillière doesn’t yet share the “vogue” of the various French thinkers, probably because his over 30 volumes are too richly documented, written without any glamour, lacking the fluid grace of the Bergsonian style, and the precision of Boutroux, and the perfect clarity of Valéry.” (Petre PANDREA, “Mistica Statului”, I, Gândirea, No. 7-8, 1927, p. 149). 1 2 64 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 vaincre. L’impérialisme proprement-dit, impérialisme de race ou de nation, en fournira la preuve la plus manifeste”1. Imperialism is therefore the natural result of the individual’s social life, which is a development from the fact that “to be means to fight”. The religious dimension steps in through the fact that the god becomes man’s ally in this fight for survival: “Les phénomènes subconscients du mysticisme […] inspirent presque nécessairement à l’esprit, qui en devient le théâtre, la conviction qu’il jouit de l’alliance défensive et au besoin offensive de quelque dieu, prêt à l’appuyer pour la lutte vitale. Ces phénomènes apportent la foi dans une augmentation de puissance du fait de cette surhumaine alliance. A ce titre ils conduisent à ce qu’on peut appeler un impérialisme extra-rationnel ou supra-rationnel, en tout cas irrationnel”2. The religious dimension thus joins the game from the moment in which man, caught in his fight for survival, invokes divinity to join him in this endeavour. Precisely the same terms are employed by P. Pandrea to define mysticism: “In the fight for preservation or domination that the I or the State is leading, they have assured to have the alliance of a supreme being (God) or that of a fertile and propulsive state of spirit (Mysticism). For the primitive man, the gods are adjuvants in the fight for preservation. Later, Jehovah was the ally of the chosen people. The blossoming and unique preservation of Judaism is indebted to this state of spirit and each time this state of spirit has repeated itself in history (Romans, British, Germans) we’ve had the same results”3. As for Seillière, the will to power, assimilated to the preservation instinct, is the individual’s strongest instinct, and man finds the justification for this instinct in God’s image, who is great and powerful in an absolute manner: “In God, man integrates an image such as desired by him, according to which he shapes his features and directs his impulses: great, powerful and just. (Notice that the will to power, revealed by the idea of God is probably the deepest and the most imperative for people. They all wish to command, they desire the strange voluptuousness of making others kneel.) In fact, the necessity of and the aspiration towards God, with its immediate correlative, Justice, is an obscure instinct of individual preservation, the temple of goddess Themis being the strongest police instrument which assures a maximum of benefits to society’s member”4. From the way in which E. Seillière and, following him, P. Pandrea defined mysticism, we may draw two conclusions: in this case, the role of mysticism is to consolidate the individual’s ego, to strengthen the preservation instinct he needs in his fight for survival. This is carried out through the alliance that the individual makes with divinity in his fight for survival, an alliance which bestows the protection of the superior being on him. In this definition of terms and this establishment of the problem we can notice two significant slides of sense. Mysticism receives an entirely different function from the one it has inside religious traditions or philosophy of religion. A recent book on this subject, that of the British theologian John Hick, defines the mystic experience within the framework of a life that is “permanent and consistent, and expresses the profound transformation of being free from egocentrism, leading to a receptivity towards all that is life, a receptivity expressed through compassion”5 and love for one’s 1 Ernest SEILLIERE, Mysticisme et domination: essais de critique impérialiste, Librairie Félix Alcan, Paris, 1913, “Avant-Propos”, p. II. 2 Ibidem, p. III. 3 Petre PANDREA, “Mistica Statului”, I, Gândirea, No. 7-8, 1927, p. 149. 4 Ibidem, p. 145. 5 John HICK, Noua frontieră a religiei și științei, trans. A. Anghel, Herald, Bucure ti, 2012, p. 80. 65 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 fellow. Therefore, in contradiction with the way Seillière and P. Pandrea understand it, mysticism assumes the renunciation of one’s own ego and “passing from natural selfcentredness to a new orientation, centred on the transcendent”1. From this inversion of the sense of “mysticism” follows the different understanding of the place which divinity takes in this experience. If for Seillière and Pandrea God becomes “the ally” of man in his fight for survival, thus being transformed into a good instrument for the accomplishment of his goal, which is his own preservation, in the religious understanding of mysticism God is the supreme goal, which has to be followed even if sometimes at the cost of losing one’s own individuality. We thus notice a radical inversion of sense of the mystic phenomenon. If in the latter case we may speak of religious mysticism, in Pandrea’s terms we may speak of political mysticism. 4. MYSTICISM AND POLITICAL RELIGIONS As we could notice, the sense of the two notions is contradictory. Political mysticism is born out of the fact that divinity is considered a strong base of the individual ego and of the preservation instinct which, as will to power, is understood as the very essence of politics. Or, in this manner God becomes an extension of the state: “The Idea of State is a small part of the idea of God. They both give a certain unity to the ego, torn between contradictory tendencies, they teach it humility and sacrifice, and they show it the limits and ephemeral powers”2. As it evidently results from the previous paragraph, the state is a God on a smaller scale, there being no difference of nature between God and the state. Given the fact that there is a continuity of nature between the two dimensions, based on a strong analogy or even identity between religion and politics, we can certainly speak here in terms of political religion, political mysticism being in fact an essential dimension of the larger phenomenon of political religions. The phenomenon of political religions was theorised for the first time by the German philosopher Eric Voegelin who, in the ‘30s, terms fascism and nationalsocialism as being not mere political regimes, but true political religions3. Voegelin discusses the religious dimension of the political phenomenon, believing it to be essential to the understanding of some modern ideologies, as strong as those which enjoyed such success during the inter-war period. In order to define political religions, E. Voegelin makes a distinction between spiritual religions, which find their divinity in “the world’s ground (Weltgrund)” and intramundane religions, which “find their divinity in world’s matters”4. Unlike the first, which is related to a transcendent reality, intramundane religions transfer the attributes and qualities of the transcendent to mundane realities. Political religions are therefore based on the analogy between transcendent and mundane or on the inversion of roles in between them – when the mundane takes the place of the transcendent. In the former case we are speaking of political religions in which there exists a relation to the transcendent – such is the case of the cult of Akhenaton, where he Ibidem, p. 290. Petre PANDREA, “Mistica statului”, I, Gândirea, No. 7-8, 1927, p. 150. See the Introductive Study of Bogdan Iva cu, at Eric VOEGELIN, Religiile politice, trans. B. Iva cu, Humanitas, Bucure ti, 2010, p. 62. 4 Eric VOEGELIN, Religiile politice...cit., p. 87. 1 2 3 66 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 is the representative of god on earth1 –, whereas in the latter case the relation to the transcendent is closed, and the intramundane community takes over the role of the transcendent – as is the case of modern religions2. From Voegelin’s point of view, Thomas Hobbes is the modern author who has decisively contributed to the edification of politics as intramundane religion, by the way he related it to the sovereign, and who, besides being a theorist of absolutist monarchy, he terms as “the great theologian of the particular church”3, namely the theorist of intramundane community. In Hobbes, the Leviathan is the omnipotent state placed immediately under God, and ruled by the absolute sovereign, a sovereign who is the representative of the community and its bearer of sense. The symbol of the Leviathan has the purpose to eliminate the open to transcendent structure of the Christian Church and to lead to an understanding of the community as “a self-centred unity”4, namely the role of theorising the intramundane community. This is the reason why, although the sovereign acts according to God’s will, he no longer receives legitimacy from God, but from the community it represents. What is important here is the way in which political community defines itself and relates to the sovereign, in a perfectly analogous way to how the Church relates to Christ: “The new community attains its unity in the sovereign, the same mystic-symbolic way in which the Pauline church attained its unity in the pneuma and kephale springing from Christ (Ephes. 4:15). Particular nations are the mundane substance of the political community, but their unity is a corpus mysticum similar to the Christian Church”5. We have here, therefore, a strong analogy between the way the Church (transmundane community) relates mystically to Christ and the way civil society (intramundane community) relates to its sovereign. This analogy, which sometimes goes as far as an identity, imbrication or even disguise is thus defining in order to understand political religions. The situation is consistent with the case we presented here. In P. Pandrea’s articles the unity and the sense of intramundane community are not represented by the sovereign, but by the state, and the mystical relation of individuals is to the state also. Although there is reference to the transcendent, we’ve seen that God isn’t regarded as having a function and a role different from that of the state, but is rather seen as an extension of the state itself. We can speak in this case of a quantitative analogy between God and the state: “The Ideea of State is a small part (emph. add.) of the Idea of God”6. Starting from this analogy, according to how individuals relate to God, discovering their own limits and learning “humility and sacrifice”7, they can discover the same thing through their relation to the state. The state thus becomes essential to defining the sense of the individual’s life: it “is an element of organisation, the sole possibility of gathering in one unitary beam the divergent rays of the individual soul, which, if left to its own will, presents an inferior tendency of returning to primitive formulae: impulsivity, Ibidem, pp. 90-102. “The symbolism of the completely closed intramundane ecclesia didn't have to go beyond the symbol of the Leviathan – the decisive step being the beheading of God. [...] Now God’s connection with the intramundane symbolism is cut and replaced by the community itself as a source of legitimacy for the collective person.” (Eric VOEGELIN, Religiile politice...cit., pp. 140-141). 3 Ibidem, p. 122. 4 Ibidem, p. 124. 5 Ibidem, p. 125. 6 Petre PANDREA, “Mistica statului”, I, Gândirea, No. 7-8, 1927, p. 150 7 Ibidem, p. 150. 1 2 67 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 disintegration, complete lack of restraint”1. This is where the idea of the state’s cult appears, to which the individual must adhere in order to give a sense to his life or to give up the unrestrained and “low” tendencies of his own ego: “The social elements predominate over the individual’s life, nurturing his conscience and giving him their orders. The cult of the state ultimately does nothing but to enthrone a normal and healthy rule of organised collectivities”2. We can notice how by enforcing an almost religious cult of the state, which claims to ennoble and provide a sense to individuals’ lives, individual egoism is not eliminated, but only converted, according to the philosophy of imperialism, into a collective egoism. This way the view on the authoritarian state is shaped, the state being seen as a collective being in which citizens mystically participate, and being defined from the perspective of political religions as an intramundane community. The authoritarian state is based on three fundamental principles: “the idea of order, of competent hierarchy and that of predominance of collective rights over individual rights”3. Order and hierarchy are two essential dimensions, which draw the political life near the divine sphere, both being at their origin essential symbols of the divine universe or universe created by divinity4. This is where the priority collectivities receive over individuals comes from, and and also the inherent conflict which appears between the authoritarian state and the liberal democratic state, a conflict to which we shall refer hereinafter. 5. THE ORGANIC PERSPECTIVE BETWEEN THE AUTHORITARIAN STATE AND THE DEMOCRATIC ONE The submission relation between individuals and state, from the perspective of the authoritarian state, is based on an organic view on society, a view according to which individuals have the same role towards the state as that of a member towards the entire organism: “The bond between Individual and State is not one from an adversary to another and not one from a friend to another, but from a live organ to a live organ, their relation being a tacit condition for reciprocal existence”5. We must also note here the fact fact that C. Stere himself, after being accused by P. Pandrea of having a rationalist and mechanistic view on society6, claims that the administrative reorganisation of Great Romania had been done in a mechanic manner, without taking into account the organic realities: “We need not mechanic standardisation, but intimate union in thoughts and feelings, which can only emerge from the respect given to peculiarities and natural characteristics of each one, and from the truly free activity of all. Real power can never Ibidem, p. 143. Idem, “Pârvan i filosofia statului”, Gândirea, No. 4, 1928, p. 145. Idem, “Mistica statului”, I, Gândirea, No. 7-8, 1927, p. 143. Eric VOEGELIN, Religiile politice...cit., pp. 103-106. Petre PANDREA, “Pârvan i filosofia statului”, Gândirea, No. 4, 1928, p. 145. P. Pandrea traces an opposition between the rationalist, critical current, represented in the Romanian culture by junimism, caragialism, poporanism and zarifopoliomanie (from the publicist’s name, Paul Zarifopol) and the organic, historical and creative culture, represented by KogĖlniceanu, Eminescu, BĖrnu iu, Iorga, Pârvan, RĖdulescu-Motru and the Gândirea journal (cf. Petre PANDREA, “Pârvan i filosofia statului”, Gândirea, No. 4, 1928, p. 149). Therefore, we thus have on the one hand “the organicist conceptions (this included the authoritarian state)” and, on the other hand, “the mechanistic conceptions of the State (this inclused democratism)”, Stere being included in the last category (Petre PANDREA, “Mistica statului”, I, Gândirea, No. 7-8, 1928, p. 145). 1 2 3 4 5 6 68 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 spring from the monotony of an exterior mechanisation, but only from the lively organic diversity”1. The paradox is merely apparent and derives from the polysemy which the word organic possesses, a polysemy which determines the two authors to give it different senses. When Stere speaks about the “organic diversity” of the different Romanian provinces or about the Romanian villages as being “live cells of the social organism”2, he has in view a certain historical evolution of the Romanian society and the fact that the administrative and territorial organisation of Great Romania should be consonant with this evolution. The “organic” dimension refers first to local realities, this being the reason why Stere is a supporter of local autonomies. On the other hand, P. Pandrea, in spite of proclaiming himself a spokesman of the organic vision, inspired by the historical tradition3, not only is he against the local autonomies which Stere is supporting, but is, on the contrary, a supporter of rapid political and administrative centralisation, which in his view is required by the historical context: “The historical moment of the Romanian State, compared to other analogous moments, actually indicates the ascent of centralisation, as a method of the unification”4. unification”4. Only that political centralisation, as a unification instrument, although required by the historical moment, is contradictory to local traditions and it radically breaks up with them. This fact is noticed by P. Pandrea who sees in this centrifugal tendency of local traditions a serious impediment for centralisation: “To these centrifugal political and economic tendencies there regularly correspond centrifugal juridical tendency. The towns in Transylvania, Bucovina and Bessarabia will hardly settle for the new juridical order, which the Romanian State has created, because, economically speaking, they don’t yet revolve around the Capital, and politically, they’ve gathered in minority groups. The refusal to merge, not just officially, with the new geography, brings difficulties in the distribution of justice. The organic acknowledgment and the exact applicability of the laws face both economic and political difficulties, besides the spiritual ones. The break from the initial complex has created an offsetting which the immediate introduction of some new laws, to regularise ancient habits, would have worsened”.5 We thus notice how a self-proclaimed supporter of historicism and organicism, contrary to the opinions he is expressing, is sustaining a politics which radically breaks off with the past. It is clear from all these that P. Pandrea’s term “organic” does not refer to the local dimension of the historical traditions. What he aims at, when he refers to the past and tradition, is the existence of a reified nature of the Romanian people, which has been passed on unaltered throughout its history, and which the present generations are Constantin STERE, “Suprema ia legii”, Viața Românească, No. 10, 1922, p. 16. Idem, “Organiza ia localĖ”, Viața Românească, No. 3, 1906, in Scrieri, p. 356. One of the predecessors who affirms this point of view is the historian Vasile Pârvan: “This organicist, historicist and realist conception is shared also by Pârvan...” (Petre PANDREA, “Pârvan i filosofia statului”, Gândirea, No. 4, 1928, p. 146). 4 Petre PANDREA, “Spiritul critic i mistica statului istoric”, II, “Criza i tehnica unificĖrii”, Gândirea, No. 11, 1928, p. 446. 5 Ibidem, p. 449. 1 2 3 69 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 obliged to preserve and pass on1. Such a view on the nature of traditions and their “organic” transmission was undoubtedly influenced by the conservative ideologies from the Romanian culture, which have actually inspired the “autochthonous” conception promoted by Gândirea. Another meaning of the term “organic”, as it appears in P. Pandrea, derives from his mystical conception on the state. The “organic” participation of each individual to the state’s life is done by his identification, which may as well be complete, with the state’s goals, which can be embodied by its leader. We are surely dealing here with that definition of the “organic truth”, the purpose of which is to legitimate a new political myth, given that it can no longer be legitimated by the religious revelation2. The organic truth, thus defined, is the unique truth of the entire community, a truth against which there can be no dissent, because dissent is a risk for the peace and unity of the community. We can note here how the “organic” perspective on truth contributes to the constitution of a totalitarian political reality. 6. POLITICAL MYSTICISM VERSUS CRITICAL SPIRIT The polemic between the two ideological orientations inflames after Mihai Ralea, an admirer and disciple of C. Stere, who later became the director of Viața Românească, writes several articles against the ideas advocated by P. Pandrea3. The polemic takes places in a culturally vast field, inside which the parts are divided by their fundamental orientations: on the one side there is the rationalist, critical, individualist, liberal current, and on the other side, the mystical, organicist, historicist and authoritarian current. P. Pandrea situates within the first category along with Titu Maiorescu and the junimist movement, Caragiale, the poporanist movement and its founder C. Stere, Paul Zarifopol etc., while the second category makes room for KogĖlniceanu, Eminescu, BĖrnu iu, Iorga, Pârvan, RĖdulescu-Motru and the journal Gândirea4. 1 M. Ralea is the one who criticises this conception supported by N. Crainic, the director of the Gândirea journal: “Mr. N. Crainic [...] thinks that this soul is fundamentally inscribed somehow within the nation, that it is the same in the past as in the present, that it provides the continuity and unity of the ancestry.” (Mihai RALEA, “Filosofia culturii cu aplica ii române ti”, Viața Românească, No. 2-3, 1926, in Scrieri, vol. 7, Minerva, Bucureşti, 1989, p. 100). Here are the objections which Ralea brings to this conception: “It could be replied that there is in the past of a people a certain feature of character which is constant, that there is something unchanged throughout historical difficulties. [...] I agree. But in this case: 1) it is either that the feature we find in the past is identical with that of today and the hypothesis of traditionalism is useless in explaining today’s specificity, 2) or that feature has changed (and it would be against historicism and evolutionism as well for it not to change) and then we are dealing today with a different feature, a different peculiarity. The most conservative collective production, folklore, has constantly been changing, by borrowing the discoveries of its time.” (Ibidem, p. 103). 2 Cf. Eric VOEGELIN, Religiile politice...cit., p. 137. E. Voegelin asserts that this perspective on the “organic truth” is consistent for the totalitarian ideologies defined as political religions. 3 We have a long series of polemical articles with the participation of other publicists. I present here the series of articles in the order of their publication: “Manifestul Crinului Alb”, Gândirea, No. 8-9, 1928 – M. RALEA, “Rasputinism”, Viața Românească, No. 12, 1928 – N. CRAINIC, the section “Cronica mĖruntĖ”, Gândirea, No. 3, 1929 – M. RALEA, “IarĖ i ortodoxismul”, Viața Românească, No. 7-8, 1929 – N. CRAINIC, the section “Cronica mĖruntĖ”, Gândirea, No. 11, 1929; P. PANDREA, “Pârvan i filosofia statului”, Gândirea, No. 4, 1928 – M. RALEA, “Vasile Pârvan i tânĖra genera ie”, Viața Românească, No. 4, 1928; P. PANDREA, “Mistica Statului”, I-IV, Gândirea, No. 7-11, 1927 – P. PANDREA, “Spiritul critic i mistica statului istoric”, I-V, Gândirea, No. 10-12, 1928 and No. 1-2, 1929 – M. RALEA, “Despre mistica statului” sau basmul cu coco ul ro ”, Viața Românească, No. 4, 1929 – E. BUCU A, “Ra ionali tii i mistica statului”, Gândirea, No. 6-7, 1929. 4 Petre PANDREA, “Pârvan i filosofia statului”, Gândirea, No. 4, 1928, p. 149. 70 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 The polemic “critical spirit” versus “mysticism” has as starting point the thesis on the existence of the critical spirit, developed by Garabet IbrĖileanu in the book entitled as such1. IbrĖileanu notes the fact that modern Romanian culture has developed itself as a marginal culture in Western Europe, through massively borrowing Western elements of culture and civilisation. In this context the critical spirit steps in and its role is to discern and assimilate the elements borrowed from abroad: “The influenced people may assimilate the culture either passively, meaning randomly, without choice, without criticism, or by criticising it, discerning the elements of the foreign culture in order to keep precisely what it needs for the development of his own riches, energies, capacities and inclinations”2. This is where the hypothesis of the critical spirit as a creative factor within the Romanian culture comes from: “Once more, a critical spirit was needed, in order to examine the elements of Western culture and to validate only those which, in order to keep the above comparison, were proper to value the Romanian energy and capacities”3. It is also IbrĖileanu who issues the thesis of the development of the critical spirit in Moldavia’s region, by identifying many factors which contributed to this evolution: Moldavia lacked a national middle class, endowed with revolutionary instincts, that is why in 1848 the revolutionary ardour manifested particularly in Wallachia, while Moldavia had a “velvet” revolution instead. The West was enthusiastically copied in Wallachia, while Moldavia’s role was rather to temper the imitative excesses of the Wallachian people. Then, Wallachia had closer relations with Transylvania throughout its history, and this is why the Latinist, pro-west idea had larger influence here. Now the Moldavians too begin to criticise, through Junimea, the Latinist abuses of the Transylvanians and Wallachians. And, last but not least, the men of culture from Moldova who were representatives of the critical current belonged largely to small boyars’ families — wherefrom this ascent of the conservative spirit over them4. The critical spirit thus proves to be “reactionary” – when it comes as a reaction to some imitative phenomena –, but also creative – as it contributes to creating an authentic Romanian culture by discerning and adapting important elements. G. IbrĖileanu then enumerates the most important exponents of the critical spirit: Gh. Asachi, M. KogĖlniceanu, V. Alecsandri (makes a passage from pașoptism to junimism), C. Negruzzi, the junimist movement (it practises especially cultural criticism), Eminescu and Caragiale (radical social critics) and the socialist movement (it also practises radical social criticism from the perspective of the left-wing Western ideology). The rationalist dimension, of Kantian origin, was later added to the thesis of the critical spirit developed by G. IbrĖileanu. From this point, “critical” becomes the synonym of “rationalist” or “Kantian”. A succession which starts with Titu Maiorescu, continues with Ion Petrovici and then with Petru Andrei, Octav Botez, M. Ralea, Dan BĖdĖrĖu, Ştefan George, Ioan Gherea, etc.5 is thus shaped. From P. Pandrea’s point of view the critical spirit is harmful to the national edifice for at least two reasons: 1) for any 1 Garabet IBRĕILEANU, Spiritul critic în cultura românească. The book was published for the first time in 1909, at the Publishing House of Via a RomâneascĖ Journal, Ia i. I use in this study the version published at Junimea, Ia i, 1970. 2 Idem, Spiritul critic…cit., Junimea, Ia i, 1970, p. 37. 3 Ibidem, p. 38. 4 Ibidem, pp. 42-44. 5 Petre PANDREA, “Spiritul critic i mistica statului istoric”, I, Gândirea, No. 10, 1928, p. 409. 71 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 culture situated at its beginning, as is the case with the Romanian culture, a creative spirit is needed, which can only be fed by the religious thrill, and not by the critical spirit: “At the origin of a culture there has always been a Sturm und Drang, an unleashing of energies and possibilities, a religious enthusiasm, an almost unlimited trust in the gifts of the respective people”1; and 2) the fact that rationalism cultivates the individual’s freedom would be noxious, from Pandrea’s view, to the coagulation of national unity: “The nationalist and progressive ideology does not favour the coagulation of the State in unitary forms. The assignment of boundless liberties and the apology of anarchic individualism are meant to detain the foundation of a Romanian state organism to the extent and splendour which the sacred historical rights, ethnical and political supremacy are claiming”2. 7. DEBATES AND DOCTRINAIRE CIRCUMSTANCES Whereas Stere thinks that democracy and individual liberties can be consolidated only by rule of law3, Pandrea thinks that, on the contrary, the law is incompatible with individual liberty, and compatible only with the authoritarian tutelage of the state: “The Law and the State are harmonic. Liberty and Law are antinomic”4. This is how Pandrea comes to a critique of Stere’s concept of “rule of law”, as he understands it, and identifies several contradictions in Stere’s doctrine of popular democracy: “We have in this doctrine a vicious circle out of which there is no way. Aiming at liberty, the supreme good of humankind, its assurance, instead of being done by an inhibition of abusive personalism, closes its way through the apology and development of dissolvent ferments. In this complex 3 contradictions of the doctrine of “Via a RomâneascĖ” can be encountered: a) antipositivism and democracy (the first is of the last generation Ralea, tefan George, the second is of all) b) the problem of the ego and the guarantee of liberties c) anti-historical rationalism and the theory of national specificity”5. The answer to these accuses was to come from Mihai Ralea. In the first place, the Junimist movement, which is seen by Ralea as a rationalist and critical current, is not alien to the conception of historicism and of the national specificity: “Junimists – this is known by everyone – have drunk deeply from German romanticism in their cultural education. These influences on Maiorescu, Carp, Negruzzi are obvious, as they studied in Berlin during the period of the romantic and historicist revolution, the sole purpose of which was the fight against the French revolution and its abusive rationalism”6. Here is how the ideological forefathers of poporanist democratism, supporters of the illuminist rationalism, not only did they prove to be impregnated with historicism, but they are also the critics of the French revolutionary rationalism. The confusion which Pandrea makes Idem, “Pârvan i filosofia statului”, Gândirea, No. 4, 1928, p. 150. Ibidem, p. 150. By the concept of the “rule of law” Stere understands three fundamental aspects: 1) nobody is above the law; 2) the incompatibility between the law and the power of coercion, abusive and dicretionary and 3) the legal defence of individual freedom. (cf. Constantin STERE, “Suprema ia legii”, Viața Românească, No. 10, 1922, pp. 6-7). 4 Petre PANDREA, “Pârvan i filosofia statului”, Gândirea, No. 4, 1928, p. 146. 5 Idem, “Spiritul critic i mistica statului istoric”, V, “Domnia Legii”, Gândirea, No. 1-2, 1929, p. 55. 6 Mihai RALEA, “Despre ”mistica statului” sau basmul cu coco ul ro ”, Viața Românească, No. 4, 1929, in Scrieri, Vol. 7, p. 185. 1 2 3 72 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 in this case is probably due to the fact that, starting from the radical antithesis between the rationalist and the historicist spirit, he prefers to emphasise the critical dimension of junimism, to the prejudice of its historicist dimension. Then, the anarchic individualism which P. Pandrea is accusing Stere of doesn’t exist in reality, because Stere relies on the solidaristic idea: “Solidarity, as sociologism, means the primacy of society over the individual. [...] The individual only lives through the society, there is not sociologist who takes the individual as his starting point. Naturally, solidarity doesn’t conceive of an autocrat state, as Hegel, but it still subsumes the individual to the group it belongs to”1. Therefore, the individual liberty Stere is pleading for, in the strict frame of “the rule of law” is in no way chaotic or anarchic as his opponents claim it to be, but it goes in a larger frame which regards the general interests of society as a whole, by also protecting the individual of possible abuses. Relying on this social conception, which aims at the general interest, Stere will allow himself to ask for the expropriation of great properties in order to accomplish the agrarian reform. As for the three contradictions which P. Pandrea notes in the poporanist doctrine of Stere, M. Ralea will punctually answer each of the objections: a) antipositivism (Kantianism) is not incompatible with democracy, but on the contrary, the sociologic positivism has always been a theoretical justification of democracy. Then, Ralea remembers that each socialist democratic claim has the Kantian ethic at its basis, an ethic which demands that people should always be regarded as goals per se and not as means2; b) the development of the individuals’ ego is perfectly compatible with the guarantee of liberty. P. Pandrea tries to affirm the contrary thesis, when he speaks of Pârvan’s critique of modern education, which blocks the evolution of individuals registered in mass education, “the inevitable pattern-education of the Egalité regime”3 and asserts that the differences between individuals better find their place in a collective, strictly hierarchic, and authoritarian society: “The main rule is not some schematic equality of individuals, but the structured territorial inequality, which the collectivity must discern through its eminent exponents and to exhort to the maximum development and blossom of wonderful virtues”4. M. Ralea evidently pleads for the contrary thesis, by saying that the individual ego can only evolve inside a regime that cultivates public liberties, and by mocking Pandrea’s claims that individuals could develop fully within a collective order5; c) rationalism and historicism are not antinomies, as could be noted in the case of the junimist predecessors. The bases of Stere’s doctrine take into account the historical evolution, and rationalism, when it is not exaggerated, doesn’t exclude historical development. Contemporary rationalists claim that reason, as faculty of knowledge, is the most appropriate for the historical moment of the age: “in the present stage of evolution of our faculties the reason is the most perfect among them”6. Also, rationalism is not incompatible with the thesis of the national specific, but, on the contrary, it can be said that reason is the faculty capable of encompassing the specific of Ibidem, p. 190. Ibidem, p. 188. Petre PANDREA, “Pârvan i filosofia statului”, Gândirea, No. 4, 1928, p. 148. Ibidem, p. 148. Mihai RALEA, “Despre ”mistica statului” sau basmul cu coco ul ro ”, Viața Românească, No. 4, 1929, in Scrieri, vol. 7 pp. 188-189. 6 Ibidem, p. 187 1 2 3 4 5 73 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 each nation by virtue of its capacity of discerning. If the problem is thus considered we can note that the “mysticism” which pleads for “union” and “fusion” is incompatible with the thesis of the national specificity1. 8. BARBARITY OR DEMOCRACY Along the debates carried out with the representatives of the right wing ideology from the Gândirea journal, M. Ralea grasps the nature of the political mysticism promoted by the young people of the new generation, and the fact that their discursive cocktail, made of irrational elements of the unconscious life and strewn with religious symbolism, can easily lead to a fall into a new barbarity. In a prophetic paragraph, M. Ralea warns about the unpleasant surprises which such a cultural, ideological and political orientation could bring: “I've said it so many times that all mystical directives recommended now to our people will be fatal. Young people who encourage this don’t think at the damage they are doing, in the name of some bizarre patriotism they claim to have for their country. For in fact a return to mysticism means returning to instinct, obscurantism and barbarism. Vitalism, and this escape temperament are not themselves values. They are mere tools that are worth as much the cause is worth, in the service of which they are placed. To a people who barely opened its eyes to the light, any possibility of civilisation is closed. They are told: do not judge, do not think, do not tame appetites and desires, become as much of a beast as you can, because it is the unconscious power of life. Return to the barbarism you lived in for centuries. Rudeness, brutality, cannibalism, rule of your wrist will suit you perfectly. Be careful only to sprinkle a little orthodoxy and mysticism on it”2. In order to avoid this barbarism which, as we’ve seen, was predictable even since 1928, M. Ralea obviously pleads for values opposed to those cultivated by the young mystical generation: liberty, responsibility, common sense, reason-based discernment, materialistic civilisation, decent life conditions for all citizens: “That which our people lacks is liberty, roads, justice and cleanness of the streets. We need some few men of character and some thousand systematic “water closets”. Of literary attitudes, although delicious in their spicy and capricious subjectivity, we may as well dispense from. We do not need luxury when we lack that which is necessary. We do not need caprice, when we do not have that which is normal. This people needs to be humanly transformed in its deep masses. This is what the young people of today must understand. Vitality, energy, yes. But in the service of civilisation. Aggressive barbarism doesn’t necessarily mean youth”.3 1 2 3 Ibidem, p. 187. Mihai RALEA, “Vasile Pârvan i tânĖra genera ie”, Viața Românească, No. 4, 1928, p. 164. Idem, “Misiunea unei genera ii”, Viața Românească, No. 1, 1928, p. 157. 74 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 In this context, from Ralea’s point of view, it is evident that the mission of the inter-war generation should be one opposed to what the young mystical generation had proposed. Instead of deliriously encouraging political mysticism, and authoritarian regimes based of the “organic” identification of the individual with the state, they should support democracy as the single form of preservation and cultivation of a society’s civilisation: “But, because we depart inspired by this method, we quickly reach the conclusion that the one political regime that can, given our times of conscience and culture, contribute to our solidarity and cohesion of state is democracy. How much ink has been spilt by so many occasional aristocrats, by the weak snobbish or merely by headless people, against democracy! But we have repeatedly risen in defence of democracy in spite of all the superior smiles of shallow dictators. And this is why: a) All civilised countries are democratic; all demi-civilised or primitive countries are dictatorial. b) Because in our country this regime has not been experienced, in order to show its gifts. If we suffer today, it is for the reactionism which has ruled, not for the democracy which has barely taken shape. c) Our civilisation is conditioned by our Europeanisation with the help of the democratic regime”1. Indeed, as seen from today, in the light of history, Ralea’s judgments seem correct. Today as well, civilisation is a synonym of democracy, Europe seems to be our only chance of evolving on the path of history, and our society’s faults are linked with the lack of democracy rather than its “excess”. M. Ralea had correctly identified the possible solutions for the Romanian society of the inter-war period, but it was the course of history in that period which would not stand by his side, yet would stand entirely by the side of his adversaries! 9. CONCLUSIONS In the present study I’ve tried to shortly retrace some of the essential aspects of this important polemic which took place in the Romanian inter-war period. As I have said, many first hand intellectuals of the time were involved in this exchange of responses. I have here presented, within the limits of space, the positions of some of those involved in this debate. On the one hand the supporters of democracy and of the constitutional regime, representing the left-wing ideology of the time’s political spectrum, and on the other hand the followers of political religion, characterized by right-wing accents, to which the fascist ideology is also subsumed. Today the results of these confrontations are well known. In accordance with what happened throughout the entire Europe, the ‘30s were years of expansion for right-wing ideologies, and then, after the end of the war, these regimes were replaced by left-wing totalitarianism in Eastern 1 Ibidem, No. 1-3, 1930, pp. 195-196. 75 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 Europe. In the inter-war period the supporters of democratism had fewer followers, and their premonitions, not only did they passed unnoticed, but were almost completely fulfilled. Their voice did not get a chance of being listened to after the war either, when nothing could stop the communist ideology. Now, their words are undoubtedly actual, not from the perspective of confronting some extremist ideology, which is not imminent, but from the perspective of the deficit of democracy which exists, even today the Romanian society, just like in the inter-war period. This study, apart from his contribution to the cultural and political history of inter-war Romania, aims to emphasise the actuality of his message for the present. Bibliography ELIADE, Mircea, Itinerariu spiritual. Scrieri de tinere e. 1927, Humanitas, Bucure ti, 2003. HICK, John, Noua frontierĖ a religiei i tiin ei, trans. A. Anghel, Herald, Bucure ti, 2012. IBRĕILEANU, Garabet, Spiritul critic în cultura româneascĖ, Junimea, Ia i, 1970. PANDREA, Petre, “Mistica Statului” I-IV, Gândirea, No. 7-8, 9, 10 and 11, 1927. PANDREA, Petre, “Pârvan i filosofia statului”, Gândirea, No. 4, 1928. PANDREA, Petre, “Spiritul critic i mistica statului istoric”, I-V, Gândirea, No. 10, 11, 12, 1928 and No. 1-2, 1929. PAVEL, Sorin, Ion NESTOR & Petre PANDREA, „Manifestul Crinului Alb”, Gândirea, No. 8-9, 1928. RALEA, Mihai, Scrieri, vol. 7, Minerva, Bucure ti, 1989. RIZESCU, Victor, Tranzi ii discursive. Despre agende culturale, istorie intelectualĖ i onorabilitate ideologicĖ dupĖ comunism, Corint, Bucure ti, 2012. SEILLIERE, Ernest, Introduction à la philosophie de l'impérialisme, Librairie Félix Alcan, Paris, 1911. SEILLIERE, Ernest, Mysticisme et domination: essais de critique impérialiste, Librairie Félix Alcan, Paris, 1913. STERE, Constantin, “Suveranitatea na ionalĖ i constituanta”, Via a RomâneascĖ, No. 9, 1922. STERE, Constantin, “Suprema ia legii”, Via a RomâneascĖ, No. 10, 1922. STERE, Constantin, “Garan ia drepturilor cetĖ ene ti în ante-proiectul de Constitu ie al Partidului ĖrĖnesc”, Via a RomâneascĖ, No. 11, 1922. STERE, Constantin, Scrieri, Minerva, Bucure ti, 1979. STERE, Constantin, Scrieri politice i filozofice, Domino, Bucure ti, 2005. VOEGELIN, Eric, Religiile politice, trans. B. Iva cu, Humanitas, Bucure ti, 2010. 76 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 “National Renaissance”, “Ideologisation”, “Political Sacralisation” and the “Ideological Think-tank” under the New Regime and the First Single Party in the Political History of Romania Florin GRECU “Hyperion” University of Bucharest Abstract: The creation of a single-party ideology by the new Romanian authoritarian monarchical regime, institutionalised and approved constitutionally on the 27th of February 1938, was aimed against the former democratic representative regime, and described itself as pursuing the common, not the individual interests. The authoritarian monarchy, through ideological monopoly, seized the majority of the dogmatic concepts of the period, and introduced mystical believes, based on orthodoxy and spirituality. Through the corporate concepts of the period, of an economic, political and social class, politicianism and parliamentarism were fought through a vehement nationalist rhetoric by the representatives of the new regime. The newly founded institutions, especially the Circles of Studies, were striving to create and spread the ideology of the single party, however, at the same time it was taken into account that these facilities were undergoing political police activities, by monitoring members and informing the Ministry of the National Renaissance Front of their activities, who were enrolled in the organisation of the first single party in the political history of Romania. Keywords: doctrine, orthodoxism, saviour, ideological monopoly, youths. 1. INTRODUCTION The current article proposes to analyse, by resorting to political science references, the way in which an ideology is created under a single-party regime. The present study analyses the Romanian authoritarian monarchical regime, which came into being through the coup d’état of the monarch during the night of 10/11 of February 1938. How exactly is an ideology for a political regime created and how does a regime produce its own piece of rhetoric? These are the questions to be answered and demonstrated, that is the authoritarian monarchy created its own politically and ideologically influenced institutions in order to spread its believes, and it even resorted in this manner to the Romanian Orthodox Church. The coalition between state and Church is brought to the fore through the monarch’s naming of Miron Cristea, the patriarch of Romania, as head of the council of ministers. The spread of the regime’s ideology was the mission of the single party and of the instruments it was provided with: the National Guard and the Circles of Study. The hypothesis to be proven here consists of the fact that the more numerous the regime’s representatives interferences were, the ideas and messages turned into state and party doctrine, the base being represented by the 77 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 constitutional order introduced on the 27th of February 1938, representing the judicial and ideological frame of the new authoritarian regime, turned into an undemocratic and unconstitutional one. 2. NATIONAL RENAISSANCE, PARTY AND STATE PROPAGANDA Why did the regime, through its single party, call itself of national salvation? The concept of national renaissance and the temporary character of authoritarian regimes are analysed both by Giovanni Sartori and Chantal Millon-Delsol, who believe that dictatorship and the authoritarian regime are circumstantial phenomena, and they cannot last more than the life span of the monarch or ruler of the respective regime. The creation of the concept of national salvation, the national renaissance, justifies, imposes and sanctions the emergence of the authoritarian regime. Delsol believes that “the national salvation dictatorship has always been temporary and provisory, circumstantial and not permanent”1. Dictatorship identified itself with oppression and functioned, in most of the cases, for short periods of time. The national renaissance represented the device of reinstating order, in order to allow another regime, in this case, the Romanian monarchical authoritarian regime to gain standing. The masquerading of party activities stands from the fact that “the new regime could not make use, in its national renaissance scheme, of a classical political party, which would only represent a vector, widening the gap and mimicking national solidarity”2. The national renaissance was the fundamental concept of the new authoritarian King Carol II’s regime. The concept of national renaissance takes inspiration from the myth of the saviour3. The rhetoric of the new regime introduced by the king as the nation’s saviour, this being the pretext for enforcing the dictatorship, the monarch wanted ever since his arrival in the country, in 1930. The new regime, lead with an iron fist, where the institutions of the state were taken over by colonels and generals, disbanded political parties, and in their place the monarch proclaimed himself absolute leader of the political system through the founding of the National Renaissance Front, a nondemocratic political and corporatist organisation. National salvation stood for the national renaissance of Romania. As Delsol states, “all the prerequisites of the traditional dictatorship are present here: the country needs to be rescued, and the saviour only works out of duty for the general interest”4. The instability produced in the country by the political parties in the ferocious battle for power, as well as the frantic demagogy, but also the internal and external threats to the very existence of the Romanian state determined the monarch to overthrow the old democratic regime through a coup d’état and proclaim himself, through state propaganda, the saviour of the nation, uplifting the country from the decline it was engulfed in due to the turmoil created by political parties. 1 Chantal MILLON-DELSOL, Ideile politice ale secolului XX, trans. Velica Boari, Editura Polirom, Iaşi, 2002, p. 113. 2 Ioan STANOMIR, “Constituťie, „CoroanĖ” şi „ťarĖ”. Constituťionalism şi monarhie autoritarĖ în intervalul 1938-1940”, Studia Politica, Revista Română de Ştiinťă Politică,Vol. III, No. 1, Editura Meridiane, Bucureşti, 2003, p. 94. 3 Raoul GIRARDET, Mituri şi mitologii politice, trans. Daniel Dimitru, Editura Institutul European, Iaşi, 1997, pp. 47-75. 4 Chantal MILLON-DELSOL, Ideile politice…cit., p. 113. 78 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 The ones to blame for this state of things were the former political parties, which were accused of corruption and selfish political interests. Any renaissance involves a severe setback prior to it. This setback represents a concept of evil, while renaissance represents a positive concept. The renaissance, in the sense of King Carol II’s period, represented the doctrinal dictatorship in the way Delsol formulates it: “The doctrinal dictatorship consists of an anti-liberal vision, the critique of political and economic liberalism and individualism, the denial of truth, enthusiasm for insane doctrines, the disaster of philosophy and the birth of subjectivism”1, but also a corporate social doctrine based on the rejection of modernity. In Lucian Blaga’s own words, “a period called renaissance is a sort of enlightenment under the influence of a grandiose past”2. The myth of decadence was the popular philosophical concept debated in that age in Western Europe. Decadence came from liberalism and the institutions created by it, the parliament and political parties, in short, it stemmed from democracy. The renaissance was possible only by invoking a decadent past, through fictitious construction, and through the promise of a secure future in which the country would resurge spiritually, economically and socially. The collapse of the country was considered to be the work of political parties, and her uplifting was the mission of the providential man who wished to cleanse the individuals of society’s evil. The providential man was regarded as the saviour of “people and civilisation, he is the one who will ignite the flame of national and spiritual renaissance. The grandeur of the authoritarian project, of order and discipline, justifies absolute power and the kick start of social cleansing, and the legitimacy of dictatorial reforms will fortify absolute power”3. The lawfulness of exerting power is based on justifying the role of the monarch to herd his royal subjects. Delsol considers that “authoritarian power is based on and legitimised by the connection with the people. Power does not need elections, because it exists in osmosis with the nation”4. The monarch institutionalised the new regime through the plebiscite of the constitution of February 27, subject to the vote of the people, and thus, the population of the kingdom of Romania voted for the new regime from a judicial and a symbolic point of view, but also for the legalisation of further actions through the force of the monarch and the new authoritarian institutions. 3. THE REGIME AS AN IDEOLOGY THROUGH THE SINGLE PARTY The National Renaissance Front failed to impose its ideological program, proclaimed over its more than two years of existence, neither at the party level, nor at the social level. The front’s ideology was meant to represent the regime, and the party was a personification of the monarch. Therefore, “the single-party regime is based on the ideological side which the state imposes on society through the party”5. Thus, the NRF was the party that wanted to hold the monopoly of the political activity and control of Ibidem, p. 97. Lucian BLAGA, “Renaştere sau creaťie?”, Zece ani de domnie ai M.S. Regelui Carol al II-lea, Organizarea Politică, Juridică şi administrativă, Vol. I, Editura Cartea RomâneascĖ, Bucureşti, 1940, p. 341. 3 Chantal MILLON-DELSOL, Ideile politice…cit., p. 112. 4 Ibidem, p. 114. 5 Raymond ARON, Democraťie şi totalitarism, trans. Simona Ceauşu, ALL, Bucureşti, 2001, p. 203. 1 2 79 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 the state, for the purpose of imposing its own ideology on each and every organisation. The single-party ideology dominated all the speeches and agendas of the single-party’s new organisations. The organisation and reorganisation of the guilds evoked the influences of the front’s ideology. The only purpose of the ideology was to uphold the principles of the new authoritarian state. Through the voice of Mihail Ralea, the minister of Labour, a former member of PNT’s radical wing lead by Armand CĖlinescu, it was stated that the guilds are those institutions which will not be influenced by political parties and will not offer their space for ideological proliferation. The ideological monopoly was not only influential in the spheres of the party, because, from the organisations’ level, the important element was the monopoly union, which dimensions translated into the concentration of union life. Trying to express the ideological conception of the regime, Mihail Ralea pointed out the fact that “the multiplicity of political parties encouraged political demagogy, and union multiplicity gave way for overbidding on social demagogy. Today, in the new regime, in the entire union area there can be seen a tendency to a single union”1. The single party and the single union, as well as the parliament, were tools of the regime, all of them bearing the mark of monarchical and corporate ideology. Through the state, “the party spread its ideology by using means of coercion, publicity and propaganda”2. The party’s ideology was intended to be an instrument of unity and wholeness, crossing social boundaries and political and cultural affiliations. The introduction of the regime’s ideology in the entire strata of society was the attribute of the single party and its instruments, the National Guards and the Circles of Studies. The new institutions were politically influenced and served the purpose of bringing order to the country, through the means of the coercive surveillance and control components: the army, the police, the gendarmerie and the court. The construction and the fabrication of the regime and of the single party were intended to be an alternative to the ideologies of those times which were threatening the order of the state and announced its demise. The regime instated through the coup d’état of 10/11 February 1938 did not take into account any ideological program or a specific doctrine, it only represented the will of the monarch and its entourage against internal and external threats. The new political direction of patriarch Miron Cristea’s government, concentrating on order and discipline, represented the answer which the monarchy gave to the stir created by political parties, especially the party “Everything for the Country” (Totul pentru ŤarĖ). King Carol II’s regime did not pose itself neither as a dictatorship, nor as a totalitarian regime. The state’s authority and the exertion of legitimate violence on individuals from a certain territory is Weber’s definition of the modern state3. The Romanian state, through the regime it installed, did nothing else except exert its authority as the legitimate power holder, unwilling to cede it. Political power, in any state, democratic, authoritarian or totalitarian is not ceded, it is preserved. Political power is continuous, it cannot be handed over, it can only be renewed. Georges Burdeau explains the fact that “the people try to impose their reign through violence, but having nothing Mihail RALEA, “LĖmuriri asupra proiectului de lege pentru recunoaşterea breslelor”, “Desbaterile parlamentare”, Adunarea Deputaťilor, şedinťa de luni, 10 iulie 1939, Monitorul Oficial, Nr. 10, Imprimeria CentralĖ, Bucureşti, 1939, p. 42. 2 Raymond ARON, Democraťie şi totalitarism…cit., p. 203. 3 Max WEBER, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, trans. A. M. Henderson and Talcott Parsons, The Free Press, New York & London, 1964, pp. 130-132. 1 80 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 to do with it they relegate its use and responsibility to a person or a group, on grounds of an impression, not a rational choice”1. This pattern can also be applied to King Carol II’s authoritarian regime. The people seized the power on the day of the plebiscite, but failing to make use of it they transferred it to the monarch, not to the parliament, legitimising the new regime through the constitution, thus transferring to the monarch the power held by the entire state. The period between 1938 and 1940 was one of monarchical authority, chief of the party-state, being based on an authoritarian legislation. The law decree of the 16th of December 1938, through which the new law of establishing the National Renaissance Front was promulgated, was accompanied by an explanatory memorandum of the government lead by Miron Cristea, the patriarch of Romania, and, after his passing away, by Armand CĖlinescu. In the opinion of the prime minister-patriarch, “the NRF was the sole entity, from within which the parliamentary, administrative and professional foundations were laid, on which the entire life of our state is to be supported in the future. The NRF will open the gates of the public life to all young Romanian potentials. It was reckoned that any activity outside that of the NRF is harmful to the state, and its authors must be punished as criminals of national and social order and civic corruption”2. The explanatory memorandum of the government continued with the rhetoric of the political parties and democracy. Thus, except political unification of establishing political monism, the new regime called for the elimination of political ideologies and the creation of a peaceful and favourable climate. “The NRF was established from the need to create and organise the elite and to watch over the expansion of the new institutions”3. Political monism proclaimed the unity of the new regime, of the leading class, but was similar to the methods of authoritarian and totalitarian political organisation introduced in 1930’s Europe. The new constitution, promulgated on the 27th of February 1938, nailed down the principles from which the political life of the country could flow. The old parties and the entire democratic political construction prior to the voting of the constitution were disbanded. In their place, political life was to organise itself on professional grounds, according to constitutional stipulation. This principle was satisfied through the establishment of the NFR whose purpose was to “muster the national conscience for a united and sympathetic Romanian course of action. The NFR is to replace in the future and under legal circumstances the former political parties”4. The political, economic, and social crisis is not specific to Romania, but to all the countries of South-eastern Europe. The social and economic crisis was also deepened by the effects of the Romanian elections of December 1937, the consequence of which being the establishment of the monarchical dictatorship, one which was not of the fascist or NSDAP type. The rallying of the authoritarian monarchical regime to the fascist configuration was not something new for the political architecture of the period. The new regime was not a pure Romanian phenomenon, because “one by one, there were changes in the type of government of Balkan countries and they all had an almost similar content to that existing in Romania. Chronologically, Romania was the last one in the 1 2 3 4 Georges BURDEAU, Traité de Science Politique, VI – Les régimes politiques, PUF, Paris, 1985, pp. 144-145. “Înfiinťarea organizaťiei politice F.R.N”, Universul, the 55th year, No. 344 of 17, December, 1938, p. 1. Ibidem, p. 1. Ibidem, p. 1. 81 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 Balkans to follow this path1”. Most regimes and European political movements that claim a dictatorship doctrine in the period of the two World Wars are fascist or related to fascism rather than showing traditional Christian values, a centrifugal corporatism which will become state-related in its own logic; rather a moral than a temporal saving of human kind. All authoritarian or totalitarian regimes show predominantly the Christian or corporate ideal, the nostalgia of pre-urban and pre-individualistic society2. The temptation of establishing one-party systems was a tendency in the Central and Eastern Europe, but also in democratic Western Europe. This fashion of a one-party state was imported to Romania as well by the establishment of King Carol II’s personal dictatorship: “In Southern Europe, the dictatorships of Primo de Rivera and Franco, the dictatorship of Salazar in Portugal, that of General Pangalos then of General Metaxas in Greece; in Central Europe the “Order and Tradition” movement in Switzerland; the governments of monsignor Seipel, then Dollfuss then Schuschnigg in Austria, those of Hlinka and monsignor Tiso in Slovakia, the power of general Horthy, then that of Gömbös in Hungary, C. Z. Codreanu’s Archangel Michael Legion in Romania and the authoritarian regimes of King Carol II in Romania, King Boris the 3rd in Bulgaria, King Aleksandru in Yugoslavia, Pilsudski’s conservative regime in Poland and even Degrelle’s Rexist party in Belgium, from the name of Christ the King or Doriot’s Popular French Party in France”.3 4. THE SACRALISATION OF POLITICS UNDER THE ONE-PARTY A regime of personal monarchy was and still is in history treaties and political sciences an authoritarian regime, because it cannot give an official ideology “of the religious type” in a sartorial sense. Giovanni Sartori thinks that “a dictator proclaims an official ideology, but only on limited criteria or not with a persuasive ability”4. The ideology of the single party, just like the regime itself, existed only as long as the king was on the throne, “because simple authoritarian dictatorships will not outlast the person’s life, i.e. that of the dictator”5. Political life in the 1930-1940s was organised by the state and by the one-party, thus managing to turn the organisation in the direction that the monarch devised and wished. Therefore NRF becomes a state organism and political life focuses on the monarch. NRF was re-defining the notion of homeland and this was to be implanted in the minds of all who were considered Romanians. Public law professor Anibal Teodorescu references the text of the new constitution which reminded the citizens’ duties and that “living Romanians should put their own country above anything else in life”6. The notion of home land was closely related to Romanian spirituality and way of Lucreťiu P ĕTRĕ CANU, Sub trei dictaturi, Editura EnciclopedicĖ, Bucureşti, 1970, p. 121. Chantal MILLON-DELSOL, Ideile politice…cit., p. 95. Ibidem, p. 95. Giovanni SARTORI, Teoria democraťiei reinterpretată, trans. Doru Pop, Editura Polirom, Bucureşti, 1999, p. 192. 5 Ibidem, p. 192. 6 “Cuvântarea lui Anibal Teodorescu”, în Ťara Nouă prin Munca Tuturor, Biblioteca FRN, Editat de Subsecretariatul de Stat al Propagandei, Imprimeria Statului, Bucureşti, 1939, p. 56. 1 2 3 4 82 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 thinking. By definition, the rule over the bodies of individuals was the right of the state and of the party, carried out through the force of the Police, order officers, Army and law courts, while the rule over the soul was the exclusive right of the Romanian Orthodox Church, which was charged with caring for the people’s souls through their priests and religious canon. Starting from the premise of the party’s spirituality and inter-connection with religion, I shall show the mystical elements of the NRF doctrine, that is the connection between State-Church-Nation-Party-King. In this respect certain texts will be relevant to enhance the ideology of the first state-party in Romania’s political history. Consequently, “[…] between the Nation and the State (between the Romanian authoritarian orthodox state and the Romanian nation) there is an absolutely necessary and explicit organic relationship; today we go back to the old connection which existed between the state and the people, which form an inseparable and untouchable whole, and this organic formula, absolutely necessary between the State and the Nation existing in the same form between the Church and the Nation, is the very formula of the National Renaissance Front”.1 The fusing of religion, especially the Orthodox Church, with politics was achieved by the appointment of patriarch Miron Cristea as prime minister that is president of the Council of Ministers. The concept of religious politics is defining for authoritarian and totalitarian regimes. The sanctification of politics will reach its highest point with the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century. “Nazism and fascism contributed to the sacralisation of politics, but fascism was built and evolved as a political religion”2. For any regime, be it totalitarian or authoritarian, ideology was the instrument of power in the fight with political adversaries. The modern state is built as a legitimate institution and is the one which determines the creation of ideological dimensions. Religion, on the other hand, was represented by the Orthodox Church, which contested the democratic parties’ powers by dint of a radical totalitarian rhetoric. On the other hand, the State constitutionally and lawfully limited civil rights and freedom by establishing censorship and the state of emergency, a fundament for the new party’s ideological order. The one party, that is the state, did not identify itself with the Church or with any other military religious order, but some doctrines promoted by the party had religious elements, with ideological features or the other way around. The political religion promoted by the new party at propaganda level materialised by the nomination of the patriarch as Prime-Minister. He forbade the priests to conduct any sort of political activity in churches. “Political propaganda in places of worship or with the occasion of religious events is not allowed to anybody”3. The one party, NRF and its armed branch, the National Guard promoted the regime’s religious ideology through the Church and priests, although the spreading of political ideas was forbidden4. 1 Theodor VL ĕDESCU, Frontul Renaşterii Naťionale, originea şi doctrina, Imprimeriile Statului, Bucureşti, 1939. p. 20. 2 Emilio GENTILE, “Fascism as Political Religion”, Journal of Contemporary History, SAGE, London Newbury, Park and New Delhi, Vol. 25, May-June 1990, p. 229. 3 “Constituťiune: promulgatĖ cu Înaltul decret-regal, nr.1045 din 27 februarie”, Monitorul Oficial, nr. 48, partea I bis, din 27 februarie 1938, Bucureşti, Editura Monitorul Oficial, Bucureşti, 1938, p. 15. 4 Florin GRECU, “Regimul şi principiile Constituťiei de la 1938”, Sfera Politicii, No. 172, 2012, pp. 70-82. 83 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 The Church was the party’s propaganda institution, not the Ministry of Propaganda or the one party’s National Guard. The idea promoted by the triad ChurchParty-Ministry was that of subordinating the individual and his private interests to collective state interests, which were considered to be superior. As for the acceptance of the authoritarian monarchic regime by the Romanian Orthodox Church, the speech delivered by Armand CĖlinescu in the superior council of NRF sheds light on the support the authoritarian regime had from the Church, and the nomination of the Patriarch as prime-minister was calculated as a manoeuvre to take over the clergy. In his speech in the National Superior Council, the Internal Affairs Minister thanked the Church for the support it gave to the new regime and for the adhesion to the new political orientation of the Romanian authoritarian state. Thus, “at the call of the heads of the two sister Churches in Transylvania, archbishops BĖlan and Niculescu, on February 27th 1939 tens of thousands of citizens gathered in the city of the Unification and with unusual enthusiasm professed their devotion to the King and their permanent connections to the newly established regime”1. By this speech the Prime Minister was proving that the regime was supported ideologically and religiously by the two Churches. If in Western Catholic democratic or liberal states the phenomenon occurs reversely in its minute details and contradicts the Eastern Orthodox Romanian authoritarian state: “In our authoritarian Orthodox state, the concept of State becomes the same as the concept of People and is given meaning by the Nation as an organic body. The connections in this National organic body in the Romanian Orthodox authoritarian State is made through the National Salvation Front, which eliminates all elements of class, numbers and rights (as in liberaldemocratic states) and promotes the pre-eminence and existentiality of the ideas of People, Ethnicity and Orthodoxy by way of real absolute freedom, as a feeling and focus of total adhesion and full forming”.2 The definition of state is of an authoritarian nature, in which the principles of democracy find no place as NRF was the element of cohesion between individuals no longer affiliated to political organisations. The whole authoritarian architecture turned around the palace, the regime confiscating thus almost all ideological concepts, be they foreign or autochthonous. As such, we can say that NRF’s ideological sources are heterogeneous. The attacks on political parties were nothing but attacks on democracy, looked down upon by the new party’s members. Even Prime-Minister Armand CĖlinescu’s speech was impregnated with mystical elements praising Orthodoxy and spirituality. He thought that “NRF is more of a spiritual movement, aiming to create a spirit of national unity”3. He also mentioned that “NRF rests on Christian faith. Being a Christian movement, it aims at giving life a meaning and a Christian value”4. One can easily see “Şedinťa Consiliului Superior al FRN. Comemorarea Regelui Carol I. Cuvântarea d-lui prim-ministru Armand CĖlinescu”, Universul, the 56th year, No. 126 of 11 May, 1939, p. 9. 2 Theodor VLĕDESCU, Frontul Renaşterii Naťionale…cit., p. 20. 3 Armand C ĕLINESCU, Noul Regim, Imprimeria CentralĖ, Bucureşti, 1939, p. 104. 4 Ibidem, p. 104. 1 84 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 that the regime was confiscating at that time the ideology through a speech with Orthodox meanings in order to counteract the discourse and actions of the Iron Guard. The Guard saw itself as the representative of Orthodoxy and for this reason it came into collision with the head of the Orthodox Church, Patriarch Miron Cristea. The regime and the only-party developed the concept of nationalism by invoking the ideas of Dacianism and Romanian ethnic pre-eminence and also by highlighting the relationship between the earthly power represented by the King and the Church’s heavenly power embodied by its representative on earth, Patriarch Miron Cristea. All these ideas and clichés were induced on party members and public clerks as part of the NRF’s ideology. The National Renaissance Front identified itself with the history, culture and spirituality of the Romanian people, as claimed by the theorists of the regime and King Carol II’s party. This party confiscated any element which could be beneficial to its propaganda in order to consolidate the notion of mother land. As such, “the National Renaissance Front was the Romanian action of Dacian renaissance of the Monarchic revolution”1. Hackneyed expressions are not relics from the communist era, they can be traced back to the clichés forming the basis of the NRF’s doctrine. According to its own official doctrine, the National Renaissance Front was the party of social revolution. It claimed to be of a revolutionary nature. The revolution done by the foundation of a new party was the King’s doing, so he was considered the “chief revolutionary”- as proof, he was appointed supreme ruler of his own party. This organisation wanted to give back to the country the pristine, honest spirit stolen by former political parties and to rebuild the old Romanian solidarity. The single party, “NRF, wanted to reunite in the Parliament a single nation which would be coaxed into serving a single purpose, namely that of doing their duty to the mother land”2. Both the actions of party members and the ideology associated with it were chaotic and had as main purpose the establishing of control and surveillance over party members and citizens alike. The aim was that in a very short time frame all social conflicts would be ended by imposing the state ideology, which was thought to be able to revolutionise a Romanian’s life. The NRF’s ideology acquired collective concepts and the individual did not have the right of free thinking anymore, but he was always there to fully obey the party and the monarch. Collectivism created the base for establishing ideological control and monopoly over the elites and at the same time over the masses. 5. THE THINK-TANK OF THE ONLY-PARTY: THE CIRCLES OF STUDIES The new regime’s discourse, through the voice of Prime-Minister Patriarch Miron Cristea was directed against the previous regime’s political organisations. The only party and the new face of the state doctrine were based on ideology, as Chantal-Delsol thinks, and sought the adhesion of the masses to the new regime. “The doctrinal state is characterised by the fact that it considers itself the only keeper of the common project and of social and political morality”3. The regime was overtly opposing the Iron Guard 1 2 3 Theodor VL ĕDESCU, Frontul Renaşterii Naťionale…cit., p. 20. Ibidem, p. 20. Chantal MILLON-DELSOL, Ideile politice…cit., p. 116. 85 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 and the way by which it could be eliminated or at least have its influence and adhesion reduced by attracting the youth into the Front’s structures. The way in which they wanted to attract the young generation into the new regime’s structures was by organising a political life that could be modelled in the spirit of the new constitution, voted by plebiscite on January 27th 19381. The possibility that the new regime borrow practices from the old parties or from the former multi-party regime was unconceivable, at least at the official rhetoric level, because NRF aimed at being a party of morality, spirituality and following the era’s political trends. Although it didn’t manage to mobilise the youth despite its attempts to discipline them in the Circles of Studies, in order to avoid being influenced by the Legionary ideology, NRF was infiltrated with members of former political parties and in this way the single party became a screen for the democratic parties’ illegality, and unofficially it legally sanctioned their activity and meetings. The militarisation of the National Renaissance Front was done through the National Guard, and the act of supervising and control was carried into effect by analysis groups which in the era were called Circles of Studies. The NRF’s activity didn’t mean just the propaganda through which the masses were adhering to the monist political body, but it also strove to supervise and influence it politically and ideologically according to the regime’s requirements. All these features lead to the image of a singleparty State dominated by an authoritarian leader. By organising the Circles of Studies, NRF aimed at establishing the doctrine and ideology of the single party. The relevant document for the role of ideology in the mobilisation of elites is “Regulations for the organisation and functioning of NRF”. From these regulations we can discover that the Service of Studies and Documentation made reports on political, social and economic issues. The Circles of Studies “made propositions about the coordination of the Ministry’s general lines of activity, created the legislation referring to the Front’s organisation, did research and gave presentations about the ideology and purposes of NRF”2. Through the Service of Security and Propaganda, the National Renaissance Front had major attributions regarding the organisation of mass media and the propaganda’s manner of spreading the party’s ideology suggested the adequate ways of diffusing this ideology in the mass media through conferences and public meeting. Additionally, the propaganda agents presented plans on how to organise the party’s mass media, they kept in touch with various newspapers all over the country through the party’s local representatives, kept track of newspapers and articles describing the party’s activity, made and proposed brochures and other propaganda materials to be distributed throughout the country and abroad3. NRF became an authoritarian party with totalitarian tendencies, because at the party level it established a sort of political police through the Service of Information and Statistics which gathered information about the state of mind and lives of party members, as well as about internal and external political events. There was even a special bureau which centralised all the data on party members, having them classified by profession and the functions they held in the party, and always sending updates to the 1 2 3 Art. cit., Universul, No. 344 of 17, December, 1938, p. 2. A.N.I.C., Fond FRN, dosar 2/1939-1940, f. 137. Ibidem, f. 138. 86 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 NRF Ministry with the changes intervened in each member’s case. This bureau also stored the results of elections for each constituency and for each professional category1. The NRF prepared these statistics in order to have a better control over its members. Thus, party members were placed in special registries, in two different categories: the first contained the 21 to 30 years old, who could not take part in the elections, and the second contained those over 30 years, who had the right to vote. Not only NRF members were monitored, but also members of the legislative – each had an entry mentioning the activity they had and also their titles in the party and the parliament. The single party made lists of candidates by principles and criteria according to the Front’s doctrinal requirements. Each candidate had a personal file created for him regarding each position he intended to occupy. Thus, citizen Ioan P. Ioan intended to run for the Council of the town of Focsani and his personal file contained the following data: he was a lawyer, was 54 years old, had gone through the Army training and was a lieutenant, had majored in Law and had graduated the Academy of Commerce. Morally, it was specified that he had no criminal record; in the skills section, he was mentioned as being energetic; in the popularity section it was mentioned that he had enough popularity. As for his political activity, alongside mentioning the parties he was part of and the positions he held, he was listed as adept of the Peasant Party and a supporter of Vaida2. After his election as senator in the corporate party, Ioan P. Ioan was appointed Secretary of the Senate on the March 7, 1940 session and made several interventions from the tribune of electors over different laws in progress, especially regarding agriculture law. In order to have a comparative view on the candidates’ files I shall present, from the data taken from NRF’s propositions for the same town Council, another file made by the local authorities. Ion Basgan also ran for the Council of the Town of Focsani – he was a 38 years old engineer, had graduated from the Polytechnic and held the army rank of sub-lieutenant. In the skills section, it was mentioned that he was a “man to be trusted” and “had enough popularity”. In the political activity section, it was mentioned that he had been a “Georgist”3, Gheorghe BrĖtianu’s liberal wing. The activity of the Circles of Study consisted in making papers useful during the elections while keeping track of candidates and results4. The camouflage of the Circles of Study was the regime’s involvement in the close supervision of the June 1st and 2nd 1939 elections by borrowing and adopting methods and practices from other totalitarian and authoritarian regimes that were establishing themselves in Europe at that time. From the ordinary clerk to the minister or senator, the NRF was monitoring everybody and knew everything that was happening inside and outside the party. The Service of Information and Propaganda also dealt with the activity of various politicians who were not members of the NRF or were just pretending to support it for the sake of appearances so that they could continue their work of libel against the regime, while being sheltered by the NRF. All information was brought to the upper leaders. The regions centralised them by counties and kept track of these elements. The events monitored for the NRF by the Circles of Studies were of social or political 1 2 3 4 Ibidem, f. 138. Idem, dosar 6/ 1939-1940, f. 36. Ibidem, f. 36. A.N.I.C., Fond FRN, dosar 2/1939-1940, f. 139. 87 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 nature. They monitored the people’s state of mind, the activities of various politicians who were or who were not members of the Nation’s Party, the actions committed against the ideology and doctrine of the Nation’s party, the ideas or opinions which circulated on hidden paths, from man to man, in writing or viva voce, police and legal information, actions that were meant to bring down the social order through acts of terror, espionage, subversive actions – in short, anything that was against the internal and external state security1. From the arguments given by Constantin C. Giurescu, Minister of the National Renaissance Front, we can see what was the role of the Circles of Study, of the ideology and propaganda in the new regime: “The Circles of Studies were only focused on the work of adaptation of the entire social, political and economic life to the organic ideas of the Front; they coordinated the whole ideological movement of NRF”2. The project of the NRF law provisioned for the creation of the Circles of Studies alongside the other important organisations in the Party and also of a Central Circle of Studies affiliated to the NRF General Secretariat. Regional and communal Circles of Studies took care of local issues. They ruled themselves by the monographic method. The Circles of Studies dealt with “the whole gamut of general issues, by centralising monographs and studies produced by the Local Circles for the purpose of fulfilling the NRF’s doctrine directions; they were political organisms” by excellence. “Technical specialised organisms provisioned by the constitutional, legal or regulatory texts had their field of activity untouched by this”3. According to the new regime’s wishes, the Circles of Studies were composed of only young elements. The NRF was their regime. The NRF intended to be dynamic and revolutionary in its major lines of action and also to be part of all manifests4. The classification in the departments and sections of the Circles of Studies was based on specialisation which made the most of individual skills. Therefore, “the activity of the Circles of Studies will not take over the catechism of former political schools in which electoral aims were the main skill test for the youth5”. According to Giurescu, “the gates were meant to be wide open for all those young people whose souls and skills were rarely treasured by the former parties”6. By dint of those Circles of Studies they planned to make the youth take part in large numbers in their own spiritual and political formation according to the NRF ideology in their Circles of Studies. The Minister of the National Renaissance Front, Constantin C. Giurescu claimed that the members of the Circles of Studies “were not summoned to fortify the electoral position of the new regime, but to set their eyes on the masses. The youth ought to find in the new political institutions the high intellectual and political culture ambition meant to re-establish morality in the Romanian ruling elite”7. The instrument of the one party was the Circles of Studies whose main role was to propagandise the Party’s doctrinal principles. We can ask ourselves whether the speeches delivered by the regime’s representatives, or by central and local elites were 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Ibidem, f. 330. Ibidem, f. 317. Ibidem, f. 318. Ibidem, f. 318. Ibidem, f. 318. Ibidem, f. 318. Ibidem, f. 318. 88 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 their own creations, or whether they were the work of the laboratory of ideas, the oneparty’s think tank. Internal Affairs minister and future Prime-Minister Armand CĖlinescu’s remarkable speeches can be questioned: were they or not from the NRF’s political organisms? Although they were not designed to be a Party School, the Circles of Studies contributed to the creation of VodĖ Carol’s Front ideology. The wish to have all young intellectuals within the walls of the Circles of Studies would have been successful, for the regime had the ideology promoted by the Legionary movement been diminished. The mentality of the members of the NRF youth was meant to be formed spiritually and prepared politically inside and under the influence of the one party’s ideology. The course was against the Iron Guard which also aimed at forming the youth in the spirit of the 1922’s generation. The Front’s declared main goal was to create a new young elite and institutions, but they too proved to be laden with ideology and politics. By the creation of the Circles of Studies, the Front’s ideological construction was meant to socially, politically and economically reshape the youth, as reported to the total and organic ideals of the One Party. As such, the ideological remodelling of the members of the NRF was the work of King Carol II. His regime in the 1938-1940 period can be defined as one based on ideology, but one which did not find support among the clerks that were part of it or among the masses in general. 6. CONCLUSIONS In its endeavour to consolidate the party, the authoritarian monarchic regime was supported by the Army. The militarised structure of the single party shows the politically laden composition of the single-party system. The political realm’s militarisation was doubled by the presence of the political police used by the new regime. In her analysis of totalitarian regimes, Hannah Arendt sees NSDAP as a state in the state political structure only that in this totalitarian regime the phenomenon was carried out by doubling services and offices, thus solving the problem of the relation between the party and the state. “For these positions of state power which the national-socialists could not take over with their own men, they created ghost-positions in their own party organisation, thus establishing a second state alongside the rightful state”1. The method of doubling offices had a precise aim, namely that of creating “positions for party members” that could not be implemented in the state’s bureaucratic structure. However, at its core the doubling of offices was meant to limit the party’s power by the creation of a seemingly competing organism inside the Nazi organisation. These competing powers created by the doubling of services were the Party, the SA and the SS2. This method of doubling the offices “offered an apparent solution to the problem of the party and the state in all one-party dictatorships”3. The doubling of offices was done in the authoritarian regime by creating a second office, the super-office which competed with the party – the Ministry of the NRF organisation. The competition under the new regime 1 Hannah ARENDT, Originile totalitarismului, trans. Ion Dur and Mircea IvĖnescu, Editura Humanitas, Bucureşti, 2006, p. 489. 2 Ibidem, p. 493. 3 Ibidem, p.492. 89 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 meant the supervision of the party and its members, the role of the Ministry being that of focusing and dissolving the party’s power by the method of appointing and hierarchic control. All decisions were sent to the Ministry through the hierarchy and internal communications from the party’s super-structure were also sent through the hierarchy. In this way, the state’s control was vertical as well as horizontal inside the sole political structure. The creation of the forceful political police that the regime used was meant to monitor state clerks inside and outside the sole political organisation. The two offices were part of the Ministry of the National Renaissance Front. The Circles of Studies, the political and ideological instrument and also the Service of Information and Statistics gathered and processed the data about the members and parliament members of the party. Although the militarisation of politics and administration was the instrument which prevented the promotion of the regime’s ideology, its ideas were spread by the clergy and religious institutions. The non-political, but politically-affiliated institution of the authoritarian regime was actually the Church. With the help of the clergy, the regime was able to spread its ideas at local level, something that could not be done by the National Renaissance Front, by the National Guard, the Ministry of the NRF, or by the Circles of Studies, structures which conceived and applied the organisation’s political strategies. Since the very moment it was created, the new regime’s support resided in the Church. The Church was the propaganda institution in places where the messages of the Ministry of Propaganda or of the Circles of Studies could not reach. On the one hand, the Church played a major role in the propaganda process for the benefit of the totalitarian organism in the late stages of the authoritarian monarchy. Priests were asked by the National Party members to advertise for the enrolling of citizens in the party. On the other hand, the NRF Ministry recommended organisation leaders that where they had priests of both Romanian Churches (Orthodox and Unified) they should find ways to appoint both creeds in Community Councils in order to avoid confessional conflicts. The collaboration of the Orthodox Church with the regime of the authoritarian monarchy was possible because none of the group made by the NRF, National Guard and the army managed to promote through the state doctrine the ideology of the single party and of the new regime, the latter being supported more by priests than by the Ministry of the National Renaissance Front or by the Ministry of Propaganda. Under Carol’s regime they managed to have an agreement between the Church and the Party-State, but regardless of the Romanian state’s organisation, be it authoritarian, totalitarian or democratic, the Church has always supported, in general in and particular, any form of political regime. On the other hand, the identification of the single party with religious faith was not a true one in Romania, in contradistinction to Italy. The members of the NRF did not consider the Party as a Church or a religious military order, as it happened with Italian Fascism. Carol’s NRF doctrine did not use totalitarian politics to create an organisation similar to that of the Catholic Church, as was the case in fascist Italy. The authoritarian regime tried to implement certain aspects of authoritarian and totalitarian regimes to follow the authoritarian political fashion of the era. The creation of the National Renaissance Front, based on corporate innovations 90 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 and ideological language of nationalistic nature was just a political instrument used by the King and the Ministry-State. Bibliography ARENDT, Hannah, Originile totalitarismului, trans. Ion Dur and Mircea IvĖnescu, Editura Humanitas, Bucureşti, 2006. ARON, Raymond, Democraťie şi totalitarism, trans. Simona Ceauşu, ALL, Bucureşti, 2001. BLAGA, Lucian, “Renaştere sau creaťie?”, Zece ani de domnie ai M.S. Regelui Carol al II-lea, Organizarea Politică, Juridică şi administrativă, Vol. I, Editura Cartea RomâneascĖ, Bucureşti, 1940, pp. 341-344. BURDEAU, Georges, Traité de Science Politique, VI – Les régimes politiques, PUF, Paris, 1985. CĕLINESCU, Armand, Noul Regim, Imprimeria CentralĖ, Bucureşti, 1939. GENTILE, Emilio, “Fascism as Political Religion”, Journal of Contemporary History, SAGE, London Newbury, Park and New Delhi, Vol. 25, May-June 1990, pp. 229-251. GIRARDET, Raoul, Mituri şi mitologii politice, trans. Daniel Dimitru, Editura Institutul European, Iaşi, 1997. GRECU, Florin, “Regimul şi principiile Constituťiei de la 1938”, Sfera Politicii, No. 172, 2012, pp. 70-82. MILLON-DELSOL, Chantal, Ideile politice ale secolului XX, trans. Velica Boari, Editura Polirom, Iaşi, 2002. PĕTRĕŞCANU, Lucreťiu, Sub trei dictaturi, Editura EnciclopedicĖ, Bucureşti, 1970. RALEA, Mihail, “LĖmuriri asupra proiectului de lege pentru recunoaşterea breslelor”, “Desbaterile parlamentare”, Adunarea Deputaťilor, şedinťa de luni, 10 iulie 1939, Monitorul Oficial, Nr. 10, Imprimeria CentralĖ, Bucureşti, 1939. SARTORI, Giovanni, Teoria democraťiei reinterpretată, trans. Doru Pop, Editura Polirom, Bucureşti, 1999. STANOMIR, Ioan,, “Constituťie, „CoroanĖ” şi „ťarĖ”. Constituťionalism şi monarhie autoritarĖ în intervalul 1938-1940”, Studia Politica, Revista RomânĖ de ŞtiinťĖ PoliticĖ,Vol. III, No. 1, Meridiane, Bucureşti, 2003, pp. 85-112. Ťara Nouă prin Munca Tuturor, Biblioteca FRN, Editat de Subsecretariatul de Stat al Propagandei, Imprimeria Statului, Bucureşti, 1939. VLĕDESCU, Theodor, Frontul Renaşterii Naťionale, originea şi doctrina, Imprimeriile Statului, Bucureşti, 1939. WEBER, Max, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, trans. A.M. Henderson and Talcott Parsons, The Free Press, New York & London, 1964. Newspapers Universul, No. 344 of December 17, 1938. Universul, No. 126 of May 11, 1939. Archival documents A.N.I.C., Fond FRN, dosar 2/1939-1940. A.N.I.C., Fond FRN, dosar 6/ 1939-1940. 91 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 The Romanian Office of Studies and Polls. A Survey from 1969 and Its Present Significations Alexandru MATEI University of South-East Europe Lumina Abstract: The study deals with the activity carried on within the Office of Studies and Polls of the Romanian Radiotelevision during Communism and, at the same time, with the relation between the Office and the official propaganda. The Office was inaugurated in 1967 and was managed by the Marxist historian and sociologist Pavel Câmpeanu. The surveys conducted by its members were perceived as a form of mediation between the Romanian Television and its audience that still evinced, at that time, the (relative) freedom of speech of the TV-viewers, in general. At the beginning of the 1970s, however, the political pressure and the wooden discourse of the Communist propaganda took over audio - visual media. The importance of the surveys and of their results rests on the conveyance of the social echo that the pro - Ceauşescu propaganda had. Nonetheless, they reveal that, in terms of popularity, the social visibility of the Romanian Television was broadened thanks to TV shows that provided entertainment, and not to those which pursued ideology. This paper focuses on an analysis undertaken by the members of the Office of Studies and Polls in 1969, concerning the public opinion about the schedules of the radio and television broadcasts. Keywords: The Romanian Office of Studies and Polls, Romanian television, political communist propaganda, social values, mass culture. On 21st January 1968, Programul de radio şi televiziune [The Television and Radio Programme] magazine announced the emergence of an “organism destined to study the opinion of the audience about radio broadcast and television shows”1. This system had already been set up in 1967, but only after introducing Channel 2 in May 1968, it started to run fully for television, also. The director of this Office of Studies and Polls of the Romanian Radiotelevision was Pavel Câmpeanu2, historian and sociologist, a genuine Marxist, close to Gheorghiu-Dej’s political group. He published a study about television that remains, even today, the Romanian reference work in the realm of television culture: Oamenii şi televiziunea [People and Television]3. The study mostly rests on the results of the The title of the article is “Emisiunile şi publicul lor” [“Television shows and their audience”], RadioTV, no. 844, p. 3. 2 Pavel Câmpeanu (1920-2003) was going to be in the 1980s one of Ceauşescu’s opponents. He emigrates in the USA and, in 2002, his name reappears on the Romanian book market, with an extremely critical biography of Ceauşescu (Ceauşescu, anii numĖrĖtorii inverse [Ceauşescu, the Years of the Countdown], Iaşi: Polirom). Beginning with the 1980s, he publishes in the USA several books written in English, most of them broaching the Romanian Communism. 3 The subtitle of Pavel Câmpeanu’s book is O privire sociologică asupra telespectatorului [A Sociological Insight into the Conduct of the TV-viewers, Meridiane, Bucureşti, 1979). The study contains data from the almost-coming-to-anend decade. Obviously, none of the author’s predictions referring to the development of television in 1 92 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 surveys conducted by the Office and, at the same time, to substantial texts written in world languages that Pavel Câmpeanu had read in books translated in Romanian under the auspices of the same Office and spread for internal use. Câmpeanu’s book had never been republished, the information on the efforts made by the members of the Office has Televiziunea hardly been shown up, the most recent reference to it appearing in a chapter from Adrian Cioroianu’s book1 Pe umerii lui Marx. O introducere în istoria comunismului românesc [On Marx’s Shoulders. An Introduction to the History of Romanian Communism]. Close to the end of the year, on December 8th, on the last page of RadioTV journal, one could read an anonymous anniversary article about the foundation of the Office: “Soon, a year will have passed from the inauguration of the Office of Studies and Polls of the Romanian Radiotelevision. The aim of this organism is to assure a continuous flow of scientifically based information dealing with the response of the audience to the radio and television programmes. [...] By 1969, this form of the relation between Radiotelevision and its wide public will have strengthened and broadened. One of the strategies to which the Office intends to resort is the establishment of some permanent boards – one for radio, the other for television – that ought to be consulted each month by mail about certain aspects of the programmes and of their reception. […] Millions of radio listeners and TV-viewers from all over the country share with the Radiotelevision the same interest: the programmes to be more entertaining, more interesting, and more useful, to comply with the legitimate exigencies of the audience to a greater extent. This is the common cause that our Office will serve more efficiently as its actions will meet a deeper understanding and a more active support from those whose contribution we are requesting”.2 Needless to say that the expectations framed in this article were going to be hastily dissolved by the impingement of the Ceauşescu couple on the cultural activity, and the attributions of the Office as the main source of the strategic decisions concerning the conceiving and the broadcast of television programmes will be demeaned3. However, at the beginning of the 1970s, the political injunctions had already had priority. The observations made by Radu Cosaşu in a television review from 1967 – I will speak about it at length in the second part of this study –, according to which television entertainment could not be taken seriously, since the TV-viewer was a person who “wore slippers and nightgown” and watched TV in his/ her own bedroom, were reflected, as a matter of fact, by the quickly-developing activity of the Office of Studies and Polls after 1968. The leading activities coordinated by the Office were: the quantitative and qualitative surveys about radio and television programmes and also Romania didn’t fulfil until 1989. However, it must be said that this happened due to other reasons pertaining to television marketing in Post - Communism. 1 Chapter 15, Bucureşti: Curtea Veche Publishing, 2007, the 2nd edition, pp. 443-466. 2 RadioTV, no. 49, 1968, p. 16. The Office members: Pavel Câmpeanu (General Secretary), Damian Liviu, Buia Octavian, Popovici Jean, Baron Petre, Herşcovici Simon, Braşoveanu Maria. The Office is narrowed today to a bureau with two employees, retired sociologists, and victims of an institutional policy which despises the role of the (sociological) research in television. 3 Discussions with television directors from back then reveal that nobody paid too much attention, not even at the very beginning, to the monthly or annual results published by the Office. The reason why this happened is that the Office had no political authority – the sole kind of authority which was accepted, and not only during Communism. 93 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 about the reception of those programmes in their chronological and thematic complexity, the translation of an international bibliography dwelling on audio-visual media, the maintenance of the interaction between the audience and the institution – in short, an effort to think and analyse media in order to provide better social assimilation of the information system that Television launches after 1945. To the contemporary reader, the usefulness of this activity is less evident, given the supremacy of the commercial television, first of all due to the – compelled – inaccessibility of the studies concerned with ideological manipulation exerted upon the spreading of information. Nonetheless, the results of the activities of this office bear indisputable documentary importance, because they are utterly tied to the period when pro - Ceauşescu propaganda still had a real social echo. Thus, those Telejurnale (Newscasts), subjected to inquiries, that depicted Nicolae Ceauşescu in the core of international political events received the most substantial ratings in the early 1970s. But the essential information offered by these studies today is the following: the most watched TV shows, around which weaves the social visibility of television, are telefictions, varieties, entertainment magazines, sportscasts and social investigations, and never the shows that displayed an ideological thesis, the outcome of the directions and of the strategies used by the political and cultural institutions of PCR1 in order to appropriate television. Therefore, I will focus on one analysis, undertaken by the Office of Studies and Polls at the beginning of its activity, during the same capital year in the history of the Romanian Television – 1969. The first paragraph of the survey, called Publicul despre orele de transmisie ale principalelor emisiuni de radio şi de televiziune [The Opinion of the Audience about the Broadcast Schedule of the Main Radio and Television Programmes] begins with this sentence: “Between 5th and 12th October this year, the Office undertook the greatest survey ever.” In the survey, 2000 people from thirteen locations took part, seven of the areas urban and the other six rural2. About one hundred operators conducted 7000 interviews with the participants. The aim of this survey was to evaluate the public opinion about the schedules of the radio and television broadcastings and to gather suggestions about possible adjustments. I will deal only with television programmes (the list below reckons fifteen), without bringing into discussion all the parameters of the survey. After unveiling, somehow predictably, the increasing appetite for suggestions of the urban audience (more and more demanding, more and more involved, assuming a more profound social conscience), the authors of the survey provided the list of the shows most often subjected to the proposals of the audience, relevant for the change of the broadcast schedule. This classification allows us, as well, to identify the most popular shows, because one is interested to know at what time a show airs only if one is interested in the show itself. We can also find this statement among the conclusions of the survey. Here is the list of the ten television programmes subordinated to the requests of the audience: Teleenciclopedia (TeleEncyclopaedia) Evening at the theatre Reflector (Spotlight) Telejurnal (The Newscast, the “night” edition) Varieties (light music) 1 2 The Romanian acronym for The Romanian Communist Party. The proportion doesn’t respect the demographic account of Romania in 1969. 94 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 Foreign languages lessons Series (“feuilleton novel”) Telejurnal (The Newscast, the main edition) Telecinemateca (The TV Classics, art movie) Între metronom şi cronometru (Between Competition TV show)1 metronome and chronometer, All information provided by the Office acknowledges the emergence of an “individual culture” in the realm of television. Pavel Câmpeanu emphasizes this collocation in a résumé made on the occasion of a professional reunion at Montreal (21st - 30th June 1969), dedicated to the reflection on the relation between the means of communication and society.2 The retrospective examination of the activity of this agency leads to a twofold conclusion. On the one hand, its existence became a major instrument of orientation and normalization of the media institution represented by the Romanian Television at a historic moment when – exceptionally – Ceauşescu’s Communist regime had taken the form of a quasi-natural life framework for a society on its way to economic growth. From this perspective, maybe exaggerating a little, we can speak of an “ideological no man’s land”3 in which the discourse of a feeble consumer society could have conveyed and then replaced anytime the dull and ascetic discourse of the Communist regime. On the other hand, its activity proved to be, even since its birth, more and more ineffective within a social reality that had to be led in a direction opposite to the one which would have brought the triumph of the “individual cultures”4. It turns out that the gradual failure of the Romanian Television as public service is nothing else than a local version of the failure of the Enlightenment project referring to the Western cultural and training institutions, visible in the case of the press and, why not, in the case of the education system in general. It is more than likely that, after the Enlightenment idea of television had perished, the education system had had to face a change of paradigm so as to survive in a world where the totalitarian humanism had died. Actually, it is easy to realize today the almost total failure of Television, in its attempt to achieve its initial slogan: to inform, to educate, to entertain. The information ultimately melted in the strive for audience which turned it into “infotainment”, education ceased representing the purpose of television programmes everywhere, not only in Romania5, popular entertainment took all types of TV shows by storm, while high culture was traversing marginal spaces. Television was directly and immediately The modest place occupied by telefictions is due to the fact that movies and TV series are generally broadcast at peak hours (the prime time lasts from 8 p.m. to 8.30 p.m.), hence the audience has no reasons to request that they aired at other time. 2 The quotes and the information on the survey discussed in this study have been taken from the file “LegĖtura cu ascultĖtorii şi telespectatorii” [“The Relation with the Listeners and the TV – Viewers”], 1969, SRR Archives. 3 Florin CONSTANTINIU, “România între 1944 şi 1989” [“Romania between 1944 and 1989”], in O istorie a românilor [A History of the Romanians], Fundaťia CulturalĖ RomânĖ, Centrul de Studii Transilvane, Cluj-Napoca, 1998, p. 341. 4 The illusions of this triumph, hidden behind the attribute “individual”, are extremely recognizable nowadays within a capitalist system that promotes the exacerbation of raw desires and their satisfaction on pretext of encouraging the exercise of the “freedom of the will”. 5 I refer to the project of educational television and to television as a cultural and intellectual “mentor”; “educative” shows last, of course, in the sphere of the public channels, but they don’t set the fashion in today’s television. 1 95 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 affected by the process called by Theodor Adorno “neutralization”1, so as to describe the decay of any political and civilizing ambition of mass culture. It seems that this process was, and still is, inevitable, at the risk of facing any intellectual conscience with the impossibility of “salvation”, other than the individual one. In the programmes of the Romanian Television at the end of the ‘60s transpires a final attempt – on the occasion of the first signs of the decline of “Gutenberg” paradigm – of the European cultural policy to put into practice the civilizing project of Enlightenment, quite a driving force for the investment of the “new man”, whose totalitarian versions represent nothing more than the obsolete and degraded avatars. The wish for “development”, present in the modern man’s conscience, or the wish for “subjectivation”, if we like, has been, however, articulated in different contexts in the West and East of Europe. In the West, television as public service has been gradually replaced by entertainment television, rather disinterested in “real” politics, as the process of “neutralization” affected social life. Supported by a post - romantic, dichotomous ideology, Eastern television – and especially the Romanian television – had to develop by following a process of ideological seclusion, on the edge and more and more outside the European and the Occidental historical reality from the end of the 20th century. Therefore, it is not censorship the only one that determined the failure of television; the structure of the 1960s - 1970s TV programmes couldn’t remain unchanged, no matter which was the political regime of the country. The structure would have been imprinted by the hegemony of entertainment (hence, by neutralization through dissolution) if it hadn’t become the enclave of the obsessional imaginary of the Ceauşescu couple. The TV-viewers’ social referents and their representation had been nearly completely removed. Most of the Eastern European televisions drew out, throughout the obsessing ‘80s, the agony of the state-owned “public service broadcasting” programmes. Theoretically, it can be considered that the programmes of the Romanian Television put into practice, around the ‘70s, one of Arnold Gehlen’s ideas, quoted by Habermas in The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity (1985). Habermas places Gehlen on the “postmodernists’” side, criticizing them for their scepticism. He also criticizes the idea that nowadays, at the end of the 20th century, the Enlightenment has seemingly been brought to nought and only the consequences of its project are still visible: for instance, technological development only runs its course, in the sense of an impulse multiplied by inertia, without taking into account the initial reason.2 As we move away from the ideological half-perplexity of the late ‘60s, this idea appears to be an excellent interpretation of the televisual representations. While the living standard lowers, little by little, during the second half of the ‘70s and Nicolae Ceauşescu’s compulsive perseverance intensifies and stifles the individual’s freedom as a private being, the “humanist” discourse that television should have promoted – an abstract discourse, 1 “Talking about culture has always been contrary to culture”. Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment. Cultural Memory in the Present, Stanford, California, Stanford University Press, 2002; see chapter “The Cultural Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception”. 2 “A self-sufficiently advancing modernization of society has separated itself from the impulses of a cultural modernity, that has seemingly become obsolete in the meantime”, Jürgen Habermas, The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity: Twelve Lectures, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1987, p. 3, quoted in Rareş Moldovan, Simptomatologii, Editura Limes, Cluj, 2011. In this book, Rareş Moldovan makes an excellent history of the Western “theory”, based on the criterion of the relation between “philosophical” and “historical”, permanently modified in modernity. My analysis of “televisual culture” finds here the opportunity to discuss the “theoretical” signification of the Communism, from the perspective of the historical radicalism, particularly popular in Romania, even nowadays. 96 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 extremely rational and hence unnatural – ignores its source, its origin. Even though this type of discourse feigns enthusiasm better, it quickly losses its freshness. At the risk of receiving the reproaches that the traumatized memory has the right to bring to anybody in the name of the absolute dimension specific to any trauma, we must notice symmetry in the everyday conduct in relation to television between 1980 and 2012: there were and there are, even now, people who refuse to watch TV. Their reasons differ, but the mentality stays the same: they do not watch TV anymore since television, as a mass cultural institution, failed to accomplish its educative mission, either because of its ideological submission or commercial debauchery. Lately, a clever TV star, who made her first appearance on PRO TV1 in the 1990s – Gianina Corondan –, stated in an article that, disappointed in television in general, gave up television. But she accepted the invitation to present a show, in December 2011, on the occasion of the 55th anniversary of TVR. This is what we call a “neutralizing” gesture: I don’t watch TV, I don’t like the television programmes broadcast in Romania, but I am going to present a TV show, for money. Whereas in the 1980s we are witnessing a tense “lack of interest” in the programmes of the Romanian public television, the indifference towards television is total today: we satisfy our most elementary needs in front of TV, we relieve our tiredness, but little do we care about the “meaning of television”. 1. SOCIAL VALUES PROMOTED BY TELEVISION IN THE LATE ‘60s Before Ceauşescu ascertained the “backwardness” of Romanian television, but some years afterwards, as well, the structure of the TV programmes could only prove that he was right. Devised to be watched at home, at one’s leisure, with family and friends, television shows failed to forge a political consciousness; they rather contributed to the sharpening of the viewers’ critical thinking. Sooner or later, TV viewers were going to realize that they had been deceived. Only after accepting the convention, Ceauşescu could believe again, but cautiously, in television. Saving that on very few occasions was television willing to exhibit its convention – this happens neither in the case of a tabloid television nowadays, nor in the case of a political tribune, as TVR was going to be. The 1960s are the years when, maybe more than ever in its history, the Romanian television reaffirms its convention, with humour and a sort of attachment to the curious look of the newly-appeared TV viewer. Television can be a school of scepticism – as Antoine Compagnon used to say about “literary theory”. Pointing to its frivolity, television conjures it and only then can it raise claims of seriousness. But television can be a symbolic school of enthusiasm only by gestures of violence. The year 1968 remains annus mirabilis of the regime, with several political events essential for the consolidation of the regime in the country, but also of its image in the Occident. Firstly, the Plenary Assembly of the Communist Party from 23rd to 25th April, wherein the recent past of the party is “reviewed”, for the elimination of the competitors to the position occupied by Ceauşescu. Especially Alexandru DrĖghici, former Minister 1 The first place on the market, since its launching on 1st December 1995, on the account of the main commercial and prestige parameters: information, entertainment, peak hours, urban population (18 - 49 years old). 97 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 of the Interior, is accused of serious derogations from the principles of equity and justice promoted by PCR and is practically removed from the managing political structures. On the other hand, former party members, convicted and executed during Dej’s regime are rehabilitated. This political act actually marks the point of resuming from zero the Communist regime in Romania and the deletion from the cultural memory of the period during which Nicolae Ceauşescu was not running the party and the country. The key collocation of his discourse, having consequences also on the policy of television programs, is the “principles of the collective direction and labor” that needed to be instituted at all the levels of public life in Romania, contrary to what had apparently happened before 1965. This collocation expresses the supremacy of the party on the personality of one of its members. Among the echoes of this meeting held at the Radiotelevision, on a general meeting of the Organization of the Radiotelevision Party Bureau, on May 6th, I quote: “We are all aware of the fact that, after the Ninth Congress, the management of our party has made from the consultation of the people, the vault key of its entire activity.”1 It is the moment when television, for the last time before December 1989, rests with the “people”, who can now indict all the ones who monopolized power for their own benefit. One week later, TVR announces the creation of the second channel (TVR2) and, under the signature of the most prestigious vice president of its entire history, launches what we would call today rebranding; Cerbul de Aur (Golden Stag) festival had had its first edition two months before. In August, the earthquake will take place: the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the troops of the Warsaw Treaty, following which Romania had a singular position within the Pact, through Nicolae Ceauşescu’s voice (along with Yugoslavia, but more prompt and more radical than the one of Tito in the expression of the principle of national sovereignty within the Treaty). Braver than others, Ceauşescu has thus the opportunity to reintroduce discipline in a society on the path of ideological and cultural liberalization, to prevent a possible Soviet intervention. But maximizing the political position of a minor state will have consequences: the increase of vigilance in the internal politics, the return of personal authoritarianism (it is the year in which the forbiddance of the plurality of positions within the party and the State by the same person, voted on the Ninth Congress, is annulled) and the predilection for muster. These reactions will fast result, from the Tenth Congress in 1969 on, in Ceauşescu’s first authoritarian and totalitarian manifestations2. We can hence state that, since 1968, the policy of Ceauşescu’s regime will be a maximalist policy which will entrust media with an agenda whose main points will be: (1) the multiplication and intensification of the references to the anniversary periods and moments in a political and cultural mythology dissociated from the Soviet one of the 1940s-1950s by two points: weakening of the Soviet cultural and political references, in parallel with the development of the cult of national history, where File 9, Party’s Committee of the 7th District, Radiotelevision, fund 50. page 36. Archives of the Municipality of Bucharest - AMB. 2 See Dumitru Popescu’s book Am fost şi cioplitor de himere [I Was an Illusions Carver], Editura Expres, Bucureşti, 1993, p. 158. 1 98 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 Communism appears as the vault of a national cathedral whose foundations would have been built 2050 years before, upon the creation of the first Dacian State1; (2) the importance conferred upon young people in their capacity of members of a society of workers living in a collectivity animated by collective and national ideals. Ever since February 1971, Ceauşescu stated: “As you well know, comrades, I am an admirer of the youth, I have been preoccupied with the youth for a long time, and I still am. I highly appreciate it, the youth’s aspirations, wishes, we must promote and help the youth, but I am for a conscious activity of the youth’s training and for not leaving it to chance”.2 After the mid-1970s, the second channel of the Romanian television will broadcast every year Revelionul tineretului (Youth’s New Year’s Eve). After 1975, the best television inquiries will bear the symbol “Y” from „youth”; (3) the industrial and urban development accelerate, given Romania’s delays not only in relation to the West, but also in reference to most Eastern countries; (4) between 1968 and 1973, the opening towards the Western culture will continue – by taking over, however, more and more elements of classicized European culture with a bourgeois background – with the reduction of contemporary mass culture imports. We cannot overlook the chance that enabled the age of autonomy and expansion of Romanian television to correspond to a turning point in the evolution of Romanian society during Communism. Fulminant but shallow, television discourse was aimed at filling in a gap: the one between the impetuous and offensive Soviet Communism of the 1960s and the nationalist Communism of the 1980s. Between 1968 and 1973 we are thus witnessing a cultural opening in Romania that was nothing more than the outcome of a discursive void: paradoxically, in this space could burst manifold cultural directions, whose traces were brought to light in television programmes. During 1966 and 1968, the Romanian television programs knitted a cultural discourse whose ideology rather reminded of a depoliticization of public life and of the correlative valorization of the individual self and cultural entertainment, to the detriment of collectivism and of the former cultural propaganda. Here is a brief review of those social objects that had become valuable because of their somehow frequent thematization through media discourse on content level and also through formal discursive reference: This anniversary was celebrated in 1980, and a movie was launched on this occasion, Burebista, directed by Gheorghe Vitanidis. Since 1974, television broadcast every year, upon Ceauşescu’s anniversary, a Romanian historical movie celebrating the character of the voivode which metonymically referred to his figure. 2 Nicolae Ceauşescu’s speech from 10th February 1971, rendered in PCR şi intelectualii în primii ani ai regimului Ceauşescu (1965-1972) [PCR and the Intellectuals in the First Years of the Ceauşescu Regime (1965-1972)], Bucureşti, Arhivele Naťionale ale României, 2007, p. 294. 1 99 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 2. THE VALORIZATION OF THE PRIVATE SELF-CULTURE Radio TV magazine is nowadays one of the testimonies of a society based on moderate consumption, of a civil democracy where the State and its institutions start minding the individual and the material values that he cherishes and possesses. A television show1, broadcast in 1968, revealed that, according to polls, 75% of the families which were about to move in new buildings considered bathroom to be the most important. Later that same year, an edition2 of Reflector (Spotlight), called “Ah, publicitatea!” (“Oh, publicity!”), criticizes the lack of originality of the advertisements. For a couple of years, Pentru noi, femeile (For Us, the Women) will remain a lifestyle show focusing on the lives of housewives, without taking into account the “educative” principles commended by the new regime. In brief, ten minutes of ads aired daily even since October 18th 1966, at first, at 18.50 p.m., then, in 1968, in primetime, at 19.50 p.m. After 1969, advertisements won’t be as frequent as before. In 1972, between October 8th and 14th, will air only two segments of Publicitate (Publicity), on Tuesday and Saturday, and two editions of Avanpremieră (Preview) (what we call today “promo”). In 1967 airs a feature report headed Blocul A-13, proprietate personală (The Block A-13, Personal Propriety) (June 6th), while on November 9th, the show La ordinea zilei (On the Tapis) will submit to “public debate” the “harmonious union of personal interests with general ones” within Romanian society. 3. THE PERSONALIZATION OF LANGUAGE We have already seen how conformist the titles of television programs were. For instance, on March 25th 1967 the show Dosarul X (X File) is released, but its name quickly changes into Dosarul nr... (File no. …). Although it preserved its autonomy, the television discourse at the end of the 1960s was a long way off the achievements of the French television3, as far as creativity is concerned: the ideological terror of the ‘50s led to a self-censorship that eased the political process of re-ideologizing the Romanian institutions during the ‘70s. The freedom of the programmers was limited to customizing, for example when it came to the presentation of a new show. The new formula of the Sunday TV magazine (Zig-Zag, directed by Dan MihĖescu and Titi Acs, replaces, at the end of April 1968, the old TV 1114) is presented as from May in an article entitled Certificat de naştere (Birth Certificate), written in the first person singular: “Even though I haven’t been born yet, I want to be a remarkable show. So, let me introduce myself in advance: Name: Zig Surname: Zag Birth date: April 28th 1968, 14.15 p.m. Transfocator (Zoom), reg. no. S8086, Filmoteca TVR (TVR Film Library). From 19th January 1968, Filmoteca TVR. See the chapter “The eight art”, in Emmanuel HOOG, La Télé. Une histoire en direct, Gallimard, Paris, 2010. TV 111 is another interactive show that begins in 1966, whose title represents the phone number that the TV-viewers have to dial to ask to listen to songs interpreted by Romanian or foreign artists. The first producer of TV 111 was Valeriu Lazarov. 1 2 3 4 100 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 I originate in the family of the entertaining TV shows broadcast on Sunday evenings and I would like to be very much alike them, in what they had the best. (...) I invite you to my anniversary, from 14.15 p.m. to 19.30 p.m.”1 This will be the most astute presentation of a TV show in RadioTV magazine throughout its whole existence, the climax of the freedom to use the most dangerous and coveted deictic offered by the Romanian language: I. But this is not the sole occurrence of the pronoun within the texts inserted in the magazine. On page 3 of the December 1st 1968 issue, Transfocator (Zoom) magazine asks: “Are you ready to say: YES?” The question is followed by a piece of dialogue between a judge and a couple that wants to divorce at 28, namely 22 years, a sort of preview of the show. Such an insight into the bowels of television programs, though narrow and singular, must be appreciated in the context of the closing that will come after it and also in the context of the conformism which dominates the central media discourse after 1989. In 1968 as well, in a programme à la “Carte blanche à”, Eu...şi micul ecran (TV Screen and…I), an artist and his guests give life to a TV show. Like other shows, it will not last long. Both the frequent repetition of the first person singular in the texts published in the magazine and the prevalence of the portraits representing TV stars from the Romanian and European show biz – the premises of a „user-friendly” discourse, the one of the popular magazine shows nowadays – will cease when a new discursive direction gathers way after 1969 and asserts itself after 1973. The “individualist” turn, taken by TVR while trying to keep the pace with the Occidental pattern2, starts to dissolve after 1969. The TV magazine for women (Pentru noi, femeile – For us, the Women), whose feminist title evidences a clear assumption of identity, will be replaced in 1970 with Căminul (Home) (broadcast for the first time on June 14th 1970), in order to invest women with social capital and especially to tie them to a social order which subordinated the individual to a collectivity. 4. THE SEPARATION WITH THE SOVIET MASS CULTURE According to the surveys conducted during the reading of the TV programs, it seems that there was a balance between the number of the Romanian shows and the foreign ones (movies, shows, documentaries, were blended). Thus, in 1966, in the 26th June – 2nd July week were broadcast six Romanian and eight foreign cultural shows. In 1967, between 10th and 16th December, eight Romanian movies and shows were aired, as compared to seven foreign movies and shows. Two of them were aired in socialist countries, three of them were European and the other three American, plus four international sportscasts. The political mark exists, but it has nothing offensive for someone who was familiar with the 1950s and was going to endure the 1980s. RTV, no. 17 (858) 1968, p. 21. The show will last six months. With the following major difference: in the West, advertising aims at increasing the consumption of goods, while in Romania it is conceived as an annexational service, offered to puzzled citizens by state-owned enterprises. However, the rhetoric resemblance cannot be denied. It is necessary to notice that, in France, TV advertising appears as an argument in favor of the national economy only in 1968, after many hesitations (see Emmanuel HOOG, quoted work, pp. 50-51). 1 2 101 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 5. CASE STUDY. Dialog la distanţ (Distance Dialogue) As a proof especially of the detachment from the Soviet propaganda, right after Ceauşescu took over the political power, I am going to talk about the sole edition of the first game show, Dialog la distanťă (Distance Dialogue), that can still be found in the TVR Film Library. The competitors are two regions: Galaťi and Braşov. The ambiguous format of the show – folk and classical music performance, dance and choreography and also a general knowledge contest on national geography and history –, and moreover the reunion in one show of several different regions of the country, alternatively, gave to this show the utmost social importance, contributing at the same time to the national unity of the Romanian society1. The show, which lasted about two hours and a half, rejoined in fact two shows (each region used to organize its own show, approximately one hour long), both moderated from the television studio in Bucharest, where the presenters were. Each show was presented in its turn by a well-known Romanian personality. For instance, Ion Besoiu for Braşov, then an actor at the theatre in Sibiu2. Those regions that didn’t dispose of the technical resources necessary to set up a live broadcast were forced to move in the neighbouring regions3. Thus the show location offered to the representatives of Galaťi was Sala Palatului (The Palace Hall) in Bucharest, recently inaugurated4. The edition we are talking about had a board made up of three composers (Radu Şerban, Camelia DĖscĖlescu and Temistocle Popa). There were nine artistic trials, interrupted by a set of five questions and answers (à la Who knows, wins), limited to economic, historical, geographic, artistic and literary aspects specific to each Romanian region. Here are the sections: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. The most beautiful and authentic local folk dance (maximum 20 pairs). The best song and dance local ensemble made up of amateurs. “The Young Hoppers”, musicians who played classical musical instruments (lower age limit: 16 years). The best local folk singer (or popular artist). “Let’s Know our Regions”, five questions about “the constructive activity, national customs, cultural values and natural beauties characteristic of each region”5 (the first part). The best opera or musical comedy singer. The best folk music singer. The best “light music” singer (song). “Let’s Know our Regions” (the second part). The most beautiful folkloric tradition of the region or improvisation. In the edition of the show that I have watched, one can sense the national inspiration of the introductory speech, but the contest still had some alluring moments: Dialog la distanťă [Distance Dialogue], 26th February 1967, reg. no. T127/4, Filmoteca TVR. According to Ion Bucheru. Ion Besoiu was 30 years old about that time and this was the moment for him to enter showbiz. In Galaťi, the presenter was Mihai Florea. 3 There were five regions out of sixteen in this situation: Argeş, Galaťi, Maramureş, Oltenia şi Suceava. 4 In 1960. 5 Quote from the file found in the Documentary Archive of the Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party (Subversion and Propaganda), 1948-1976, reg. no. 45/1966, ANR. 1 2 102 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 there were humoristic acts (for Braşov), the crowd was cheering the name of the region which they belonged to, and the challenges brought on stage true treasures of popular art. The “light music” singing competition was the most appreciated one by the urban audience1. What upset the TV-viewer of such a show – nowadays, however, we have the evidence of the same kind of uneasiness in television reviews – are the duration of the challenges and the uproar of the audience. Moreover, the answers of the competitors to the general knowledge questions were too long, way too detailed and expressed in a wooden language that betokened the terror which ended a few years earlier and which was inappropriate in the age of television2. The questions had to be read over again, because the sound system malfunctioned, and the competitors weren’t able to write them down entirely on the first reading. Eventually, the voting procedure had been borrowed from other TV shows, such as Eurovision (whose first edition was in the ‘50s): representatives of each and every region gave a loud-spoken mark, recorded on an electric panel; the marks were from 5 to 10, but the most frequent marks offered in this edition were 9 and 10. An admirable initiative of the organizers was to allow the members of each region to share gifts whose total price was limited to 1500 lei for each region: radio sets, wrist watches and now and then pick-ups. As far back as in 1967, along with the beginning of a new Distance Dialog season, the official comments on the show reveal – there was no surprise, as a matter of fact – the eternal obsession with the economy: “The challenges stipulated in the new edition of the competition will involve a smaller number of participants, each region having the possibility to present teams of maximum 200 people, obtaining in this way a discount of almost 50% in comparison with the previous series of the show”.3 Although lifeless moments didn’t miss from the show – like from any other TV show in that period –, this is why it was worth covering more than 120 minutes of the show: here we are, with moil and toil, to the last challenge: a folk tradition or a spontaneous choreography, each of them presented by a distinct artistic ensemble. The end of the show was supposed to be magnificent. While the team from Braşov chooses to present an entertaining folk dance, the team members from Galaťi choose a Stalinist propagandistic choreography, with thematic dances and revolutionary choruses, staging the victory of socialism in Romania. It was precisely the kind of entertainment the Ceauşescu couple enjoyed the most after 1976. But, in 1967, the jury had drastically disapproved of this choice. Whereas after every round the difference between the number of points gained by every region never exceeded 5 points (after the first round, the score was: Braşov 158 – Galaťi 160), we are witnessing a definite derating of Galaťi: Braşov 159 – Galaťi 145, with marks of 7 for the interpretation of the Moldavian region. This could be the reason the film which displayed this evidence is missing from the recording tape of the show. 2 An answer uttered by a young lady with trembling voice about an industrial unit in Galaťi contained the following syntagm, that was going to come later to a climax on TV: “the rolling mill has been inaugurated…in the presence of the comrade Nicolae Ceauşescu”. 3 Note about watching the competition TV show Distance Dialogue, Direcťia de PresĖ şi Edituri a CC al PCR [The Press and Publishing Direction of the Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party]. The author is Bujor Sion, future President of the Radio and Television Committee, director of the Press and Publishing Department. The total cost for 28 hours of broadcasting is estimated at 500.000 lei. “Cerbul de aur” (“The Golden Stag”) cost about 1.200.000 lei (for five days of broadcasting). 1 103 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 It is enough for us to seize the jury’s disapproval in order to ascertain that what we used to call “the return of the aesthetic” in the literary field of that time, after the long Stalinist age, was not the product of an autonomous critical thinking directed against the opposite political tendency, but an official reaction towards an imperialism which could not be explicitly denounced. This sanction, delivered by the jury of a show supervised at its turn by the Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party, represented in fact the official amendment of a political regime which, maintaining its 1948 ideological economic lines, sought a different cultural policy and internal legitimacy for these directions. One last observation about Dialog la distanťă (Distance Dialogue): which was the target audience and what sort of cultural policy did it involve? The profile of the challenges was obviously folkloric: the aim was to inform the Romanian TV-viewers – the most numerous were from Bucharest – about the Romanian regions, with their beautiful people and landscapes. What missed from this show was the mark of the urban “mass” culture, in course of development, partially represented, since 1968, by “Cerbul de Aur” (“The Golden Stag”). The broadcast of the Romanian traditional culture didn’t peril the Communist regime. Instead, the promotion of the urban culture, of Western European and particularly American origin, implied the risk of a cosmopolite cultural tropism that the regime wanted to avoid. The encouraging of this kind of culture meant the opening towards an ideologically - coloured “exterior”, which was opposite, culturally and economically speaking, from the national ideology. Beyond the obvious closure of Ceauşescu’s regime in the ‘70s, we must stress the fact that Communism was not the sole responsible for the opposition between socialist Romania and Western Europe, but also the shift to commercial, to trivial, of the Western media that gave up the “high” cultural values that it used to embrace, in favour of wider audiences. We must see in Ceauşescu’s personality cult, developed through anniversary shows performed on stadiums, through the multiplication of the “revolutionary” songs as the result of the contests organised by the Romanian Radiotelevision, through the literary club “FlacĖra” (“The Flame”), which begins in 1973 and is broadcast on television to the end of the decay, and in the development without precedent of the performance sports (especially gymnastics), as well, the effort to build up and to accomplish the oxymoron an urban, national and nationalistic culture, a depositary of values opposite to those belonging to “urban” cosmopolitism: national unity, enthusiasm for collective labour and for the idea of collectivity, “revolutionary Romanticism”. It is the realm where television could only fail, because the regime did not understood at that time a thing that is extremely evident nowadays: if literature can be national, in the first place through the basic principles of the modern text reading, television is, first of all, cosmopolite, transnational, a bearer of cultural examples. The illusion of a national television couldn’t have lasted for too long: the 90s demonstrated it abundantly. Bibliography The National Archives of Romania. The Archives of the Municipality of Bucharest. 104 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 The Romanian Film Library of TVR (Filmoteca TVR). *** (2007). PCR şi intelectualii în primii ani ai regimului Ceauşescu (1965-1972), Arhivele Naťionale ale României, Bucureşti, ADORNO, Theodor, Max HORKHEIMER , Dialectic of Enlightenment. Cultural Memory in the Present, Stanford University Press, Stanford, California, 2002. CÂMPEANU, Pavel, Oamenii şi televiziunea. O privire sociologică asupra telespectatorului. Editura Meridiane, Bucureşti, 1979. CIOROIANU, Adrian, Pe umerii lui Marx. O introducere în istoria comunismului românesc, Curtea Veche Publishing, Bucureşti, 2007. CONSTANTINIU, Florin, O istorie a românilor, Fundaťia CulturalĖ RomânĖ, Centrul de Studii Transilvane, Cluj-Napoca, 1998. HOOG, Emmanuel, La Télé. Une histoire en direct, Gallimard, Paris, 2010. POPESCU, Dumitru, Am fost şi cioplitor de himere, Editura Expres, Bucureşti, 1993. 105 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 Princip, Valter, Pejić and the Raja: Elite Domination and Betrayal in Bosnia-Herzegovina Jasmin MUJANOVIĆ York University Abstract: This article provides a historical analysis of the tensions between popular mobilization and elite-dominated state-building projects in BosniaHerzegovina (BiH) from the late 19th century to the present. I reject the narrative of “ancient ethnic hatreds” as a relevant factor in the country’s political history, arguing instead that it is the authoritarian and anti-democratic tendencies of BiH’s historic elites that have dominated the country’s development (or lack thereof). Yet by focusing on three pivotal “moments” in 1914, 1945 and 1992, I propose a parallel narrative of organic, popular mobilization and resistance that demonstrates the possibility of an alternative conceptualization of BiH history. This reading places the raja (“the people”) at the heart of a series of attempts to establish BiH as a historically constituted, polycultural space defined by difference and accommodation – a vision of vital importance for the present transitionary moment. Keywords: Bosnia-Herzegovina, democracy, elites, raja, Yugoslavia. 1. INTRODUCTION The Berlin Congress marked the end of the Ottoman Empire’s hold on BosniaHerzegovina (BiH). The various subsequent state-building projects, while almost universally succumbing to one form of authoritarianism or another, nonetheless required a certain degree of popular participation – at least, initially. This observation reveals two contradictory but parallel developments: moments of substantive political mobilization (e.g. insurrection in the name of “national liberation”) have existed and were critical to the initial successes of state projects in Bosnia-Herzegovina. However, these moments were almost in every case “betrayed.” Moreover, the emergence of authentic, popular, organic mobilization(s) was complicated by the self-interested involvement of political elites and the prevalence of “Big Men” in the region as a whole.1 In other words, the “authenticity” of these moments is problematic; the obscured, nesting hand of would-be elites and their state building aspirations looms large. This problematic relationship interests me. I want to suggest that substantive political participation on the part of “the masses” can only truly exist once the state is no longer perceived as a fetishized form of “liberation.” Rather, the state, I argue, is a form of active and deliberate depoliticization. The experience of the competing state building projects in BiH is a paradigmatic case study of this phenomenon. As such, while moments of organic, popular dissatisfaction and moments of genuine revolutionary 1 David B. KANIN, “Big Men, Corruption and Crime”, International Politics , 2003, pp. 491-526. 106 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 impetus often exist, they do so in a tense, somewhat symbiotic relationship with the narrow political aspirations of competing political elites. In other words, moments of politicization emerge in the context of transition between periods of depoliticization – from one state project to another. The question of how to transform “moments” of politicization into prolonged experiences is of implicit concern in this discussion. 2. GAVRILO PRINCIP, SARAJEVO, 1914 It was the decisive defeat of the Ottomans during the course of the RussoTurkish War (1877-1878) that allowed the European imperial powers to convene at the Congress of Berlin and redraw the borders of the Balkan “peninsula.” Amidst the imperial horse-trading, the fate of BiH occupied a central position. The Habsburgs had long lusted after BiH – both as a means to drive the Ottomans from their own doorstep, and to acquire the region as a colonial possession. In the courts of the Dual Monarchy, the anticipation was that Austro-Hungarian troops and administrators would be greeted as liberators – a common trope of would-be empires. After all, this major Christian, properly “European” power was arriving on a civilizing mission to rid the Slavs of the oppressive Ottoman yoke, as well as the vestiges of its false religion. The AustroHungarians had read (or at least, claimed) the series of violent insurrections and uprisings that had marked the late Ottoman period in BiH as a sign of the desire of the local population for reincorporation into the body of Europe proper – and what better way to facilitate this transition than through the guiding hand of Austrian imperial administration. That Muslim as much as Christian Bosnians were involved in these uprisings and rebellions, and that the participants usually demanded autonomy and not a swapping of imperial benefactors, does not seem to have influenced the dominant analysis in Vienna (Anscombe 2012).1 Indeed, BiH and its increasingly fragile relationship with the Porte had in the 1870s been something of a hot topic amongst both European statesmen and radicals alike. There is evidence, for instance, that the Italian anarchist Errico Malatesta attempted to enter the country (by swimming across a sparsely patrolled river) sometime in 1875 to participate in one of these uprisings.2 One wonders how the history of the country might have been altered had Malatesta been able to make his presence felt, or rather the presence of his overtly anti-statist, revolutionary anarchist ideals. Nonetheless, diverse Western European ideals would infiltrate the Bosnian space over the course of the late 19th and early 20th century, so that by 1914 and the period that followed, a largely Western-educated intelligentsia and Western-inspired political elite would prove to be instrumental in engineering future developments.3 When Austro-Hungarian troops finally entered BiH, the disastrous reality of their miscalculation became clear. As imperial troops approached Sarajevo, revolutionary frenzy gripped the capital: declaring a “People’s Government,” members of the Muslim Frederick F. ANSCOMBE, “The Balkan Revolutionary Age”, The Journal of Modern History, 2012, pp. 572606. 2 George WOODCOCK, Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements, Meridian Books, Cleveland & New York, 1962, p. 236. 3 Leften S. STAVRIANOS, Balkan Federation: A History of the Movement Toward Balkan Unity in Modern Times, Department of History of Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, 1942. 1 107 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 and Orthodox communities organized aggressively to repel the occupation.1 For the most part, Bosnian Catholics either remained indifferent or welcomed the occupation, viewing the Austrians as a sympathetic Catholic power. Likewise, the Jewish communities were largely exempt from service in the rebel forces, though expected to contribute to a so-called “war tax.”2 Nonetheless, while predominantly lower and middle class Muslims along similarly classed members of the Orthodox community made up the brunt of the resistance, consistent attempts were made to form a cross-cultural, multireligious movement. A declaration by one Muslim commander read: “You fellow Bosnians, Christians and Latins [Orthodox and Catholics], for the honor of the homeland in which you have experienced centuries of tranquility, go with your Islamic countrymen into battle and expel the enemy...Defending the homeland is the duty of all peoples who live in it.”3 The invocation here was to earlier anti-Ottoman struggles, that had by the 1870s become a collective staple of Bosnian life. Muslims, Catholics, and Orthodox Christians alike had grown weary of Ottoman rule for a myriad of reasons, though their logics and solutions differed. Even for Bosnia’s Muslims, ostensibly the most sympathetic to Ottoman administration, a figure like Husein-kapetan Gradaščević, the so-called “Dragon of Bosnia,” had become amongst the most venerated of folk heroes. A 19th Century nobleman, Gradaščević led one of the largest anti-Ottoman uprisings in the Empire’s history, seeking to secure an autonomous and independent BiH, for the first time since the collapse of the Medieval Bosnian state in the 15th Century.4 Local folklore had it that when an Ottoman official threatened the Bosnian with the fury of both the Porte and the heavens, Gradaščević replied “I have little fear of God, of the Sultan nothing at all, and of the Vizier I am afraid of as much as of my own horse.” Though lionized for decades by the country’s Muslims these were hardly the words of a religious martyr, more Garibaldi than Muhammad. As such, the terrestrial politics of these developments meant that the inhabitants of centers like Sarajevo and Mostar would come to jealously guard their autonomy, Muslims and Christians alike. Local nobles, guilds, and ordinary townsfolk conspired to keep Ottoman administration at arm’s length, so much so that Sarajevo was granted special, near “city-state” like status, and the residents of Mostar “kept their city in a state of almost permanent resistance to central government from the 1760s to the 1830s” (Malcolm 1994, 91-92).5 Robert Donia refers to those heady days in Sarajevo, anticipating the arrival of Austrian troops, as a “revolution” and the period marked, arguably, the first quasidemocratic “moment” in modern Bosnian history.6 The resentment felt by the Bosnians was testified to by the fact that despite a rather ramshackle collection of would-be “freedom fighters,” it would take three hundred thousand Austrian troops to pacify the country, and this only after several pitched battles and vicious house-to-house fighting in the capital. Still, this revolution was a parochial movement, beset by a “patriotic” but culturally conservative line and the prejudices of the time, and whose leadership religious elites dominated. Unsurprisingly, after the Bosnians had been subdued, “the Muslim 1 2 3 4 5 6 Robert J. DONIA, Sarajevo: A Biography, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 2006, pp. 37-59. Ibidem, p. 51. Ibidem, p. 52. Ivan LOVRENOVIĆ, Bosnia: A Cultural History, New York University Press, New York, 2001, p. 105. Noel MALCOLM, Bosnia: A Short History, Macmillian London Limited, London, 1994, pp. 91-92. Robert J. DONIA, Sarajevo...cit., p. 54. 108 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 landowning elite and affluent Serb merchants,” along with well-to-do Catholics, generally fared well.1 This too was a reflection of the classist character of the revolution (the rankand-file largely comprised of the lower and middle classes) and the perceived “ethnically” constituted character of the occupation (i.e. Catholic Austrians seen as liberating Bosnian Catholics and Croats). The revolution which had been attempted by the raja – a term referring the lower-class, taxed subjects of the Ottoman Empire which has since, in popular Bosnian parlance, come to mean simply “the people” – had in large part been undone by the narrow self-interest of the elites. The merchants and landed gentry understood that there was more profit, privilege and security to be had with the coming Austrians, than with the emergence of some sort of autonomous “Popular Government” – at least as far as they were concerned. When the fires in Sarajevo finally smoldered and the Austro-Hungarian administration began to take shape it emerged as something of a curiosity. Concerned about the growing national(ist) aspirations of Bosnia’s immediate neighbors in Zagreb and Belgrade, which had begun to “nationalize” the Catholic and Orthodox populations in the country as Croats and Serbs, respectively, the colonial administrators attempted to offer a counter narrative. They chose to advance explicitly the idea of a polycultural, cross-confessional “Bošnjaštvo” (Bosniakhood or Bosnian nationality), an identity that all Bosnians, regardless of ethnicity or religion could subscribe to.2 It should be noted that the use of the term “Bosniak” predates its adoption by the Bosnian Muslim community in the 1990s as an ethno-national label. For instance, when the Franciscan priest and agitator Ivan Franjo Jukić wrote in 1851 of a pan-religious conception of Bosnia and the “Bosniak” identity, amidst the increasing stress of essentialist Croatian and Serbian national paradigms, he did so under the pseudonym Slavoljub Bošnjak (“Slavophile Bosniak”).3 The term anticipated the pan-Slavic “Yugoslavism” of later decades, that would find particular resonance in BiH. Prior to the early 20th Century it was common for the term to be used interchangeably with “Bosnian” by members of all religious communities in the country. This new nationalizing, imperial administrative project, as promoted by the chief colonial administrator in Bosnia, Benjamin von Kállay, was founded in a particular reading of Bosnian history – it found strong resonance in pre-Ottoman Bosnian statehood, a legacy celebrated by more liberal Bosnian Croats and the Franciscan order, of which Jukić had been a member.4 This reading also appealed to Bosnian Muslims and their tradition of struggling for Bosnian autonomy within the Ottoman state. Ultimately, von Kállay’s attempt was undone by the level to which exclusivist nationalism(s) had already engendered themselves amongst the Serb and Croat populations of BiH. Segments of these communities resented the project because it was imposed through an “administrative absolutism” and thus viewed as an authoritarian and artificial imposition, even though it was largely rooted in actual historical practice and experience.5 Much like later ideas of “Yugoslavism,” nationalist critics were able to navigate around the fact that Ibidem, p. 54. Mitja VELIKONJA, Religious Separation and Political Intolerance in Bosnia-Herzegovina, College Station, Texas A&M University Press, 2003, p. 134. 3 Marko Attila HOARE, The History of Bosnia: From the Middle Ages to the Present Day, Saqi Books, London, 2007, p. 59. 4 Ivo BANAC, The National Question in Yugoslavia: Origins, History, Politics, Cornell University Press, London & Ithaca, 1988, p. 360. 5 Mitja VELIKONJA, Religious Separation...cit., p. 134. 1 2 109 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 these peoples genuinely shared a history by focusing on the authoritarian manner through which the ideas were promoted (and blithely ignoring the equally authoritarian and despotic manner in which their own supposedly homogenous nationalist identities were enforced). Hence, dissatisfaction with Austro-Hungarian colonialism and later Communist authoritarianism resulted in a rejection of Bošnjaštvo and Jugoslovenstvo amongst segments of the population. Because of the dynamic that had been presented by the Habsburgs (and later the Communists), centering on identity, Balkan and Bosnian opposition to these attempts logically manifested itself predominately in nationalist terms (e.g. “national liberation”). These ideological and historic contradictions and tensions would be embodied in the person of the young radical Gavrilo Princip, as they would be replicated later in still other figures and pivotal moments. The young assassin had spent years agitating Habsburg rule as part of a loose organization that has subsequently come to be referred to as “Young Bosnia” (Mlada Bosna).1 Princip and the “Young Bosnians” were emblematic of the contradictions of their time: they were equal parts radicals and nationalists of various stripes; sometimes Yugoslavs, often Serbs in particular – though there was at least one documented Bosnian Muslim member of Gavrilo’s circle, Muhamed Mehmedbašić.2 Noel Malcolm refers to them as “idealistic but ill-educated teenagers” who were “fiercely anti-clerical; they wanted social revolution just as much as national liberation.”3 Bakunin, Herzen and Kropotkin seem to have featured prominently amongst their philosophical influences, while Vladimir Dedijer notes that their “idols were Gorki, Andreyev, Guyot, Whitman, Oscar Wilde and Henrik Ibsen.”4 When it came time for Princip to give an explanation for his actions in Sarajevo, the young man offered an equally burdened response: “I am a Yugoslav nationalist, aiming for the unification of all Yugoslavs, and I do not care what form of state, but it must be free from Austria.”5 Complicating matters even further was the role of the socalled “Black Hand,” a secret paramilitary organization of the Kingdom of Serbia, that had been agitating amongst Bosnian Serbs along a “Greater Serbian” nationalist line and was widely speculated to have had a hand in the assassination.6 Dedijer, however, emphasizes that while the “Archduke was killed by the joint action of the secret revolutionary societies of Bosnia and Belgrade,” the relationship between these respective parts was mired by disagreement and confusion.7 In many respects, the idealism of the actual assassins stood in marked contrast to the provincial intrigues of their would-be Belgrade sponsors. The suggestion of a revolutionary who “does not care” what form of state he would give inspiration to is an almost comical retort to the zealously ideological convictions of 20th century radicals like Lenin, Trotsky and Tito but it speaks to the ambiguity of political life in BiH, and the wider Balkans in 1914. Rather than dismissing Princip as a misguided youth, a more nuanced reading should give weight to the competing ideological projects in currency at the time. After all, Princip and his Robert J. DONIA, Sarajevo...cit., pp. 109-114. Ibidem, p. 114. Noel MALCOLM, Bosnia...cit., p. 153. Vladimir DEDIJER, “Sarajevo Fifty Years After”, Foreign Affairs, 1964, p. 576. Ibidem. Xavier BOUGAREL, “Yugoslav Wars: The ‘Revenge of the Countryside’ Between Sociological Reality and Nationalist Myth”, East European Quarterly, 1999, p. 169. 7 Vladimir DEDIJER, “Sarajevo...cit.”, p. 584. 1 2 3 4 5 6 110 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 associates would have been trying to make sense of an environment where anarchist, Marxist, nationalist, monarchist and liberal currents (and bizarre marriages between these tendencies) all seemed legitimate and viable. What these competing beliefs lacked in coherence they shared in a simple, practical conviction: much as in the Ottoman period, it was clear that the imperials had to be expelled. Their presence would negate the possibility of BiH or Yugoslavia or a wider Balkan Federation as a territory constituted through any of the above ideological visions. While the “Young Bosnians” represented among the first real instances of concentrated “progressive” revolutionary influence on BiH (e.g. anarchism and Marxism – albeit interspersed with nationalism), theirs was a radicalism expressed in all the tensions, contradictions and histories of their homeland. Not surprisingly, their legacy has remained highly controversial. During the socialist years, they were celebrated as heroes. After the war in the 90s, however, and the horrors exacted on BiH, her people and her histories by Serbian nationalists in particular, they were represented by many Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats as Serb nationalist “terrorists” whose attack on the “civilizing” influence of the Habsburgs was mirrored in the “anti-civilizational” attacks on BiH urban and collective life by Karadžić et al.1 Still, their resistance to AustroHungarian rule drew on both a long history of Bosnian anti-imperialism and would foreshadow the later emergence of the anti-fascist resistance during World War II, its far more polycultural character and material success. 3. VLADIMIR “VALTER” PERIĆ, SARAJEVO, 1945 April 6th marks another of those bizarre, tragic ironies of Bosnian history. In 1945, the date marked the final liberation of the capital by Yugoslav Partisan forces from fascist occupation. In 1992, it would come to mark the first “official” day of the Siege of Sarajevo, the longest in modern history, by nationalist Serb forces and the remnants of the so-called “Yugoslav People’s Army” (JNA) and thus commenced the Bosnian War. Those who had betrayed the promise of “brotherhood and unity” that had been the guiding mantra of the post-war Yugoslav state, had turned their guns on a city and a culture that had since 1945 celebrated its liberation by one Vladimir “Valter” Perić. Valter was a Yugoslav Partisan from Serbia, who had died in the closing hours of the liberation of Sarajevo on April 6th, 1945 and subsequently became a martyr of the Partisan cause.2 His sacrifice represented everything both the Communist authorities and the people of Sarajevo itself wished to believe of themselves and their new state. He became an icon of the city, commemorated most famously in a 1972 Yugoslav drama film Valter brani Sarajevo (“Valter Defends Sarajevo”). The period under the first royal Yugoslavia was a cultural and social disaster for BiH. The declaration of a dictatorship under King Alexander on January 6th, 1929 represented merely the natural conclusion of the thrust of political evolution that had begun in the new state in 1918, and perhaps even earlier. The Kingdom of Yugoslavia 1 Anders STEFFANSON, “Urban Exile: Locals, Newcomers and the Cultural Transformation of Sarajevo”, in Xavier BOUGAREL, Elissa HELMS and Gerlachlus DUJZING (eds.), The New Bosnian Mosaic: Identities, Memories and Moral Claims in a Post-war Society (pp. 59-78), Ashgate Publishing Company, Burlington, 2007, pp. 63-65. 2 Robert J. DONIA, Sarajevo...cit., p. 200. 111 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 was largely a vehicle for and creation of Serbian nationalism – unsurprisingly spinning Princip’s et al confused politics in a self-serving light – that created as its most natural opposition still further competing nationalisms, of the Croatian variety in particular. The high-water mark of this politics came as a result of the so-called Cvetković-Maček Agreement (sporazum) of 1939 which re-organized the internal territorial divisions of the Kingdom and, specifically, divided BiH along explicitly Serbian and Croatian lines – ignoring completely the desires and objections of its Muslim, Jewish and otherwise “Yugoslav” communities, as well as those of Bosnian Serbs and Croats, proper, who viewed BiH and not Serbia or Croatia as their homeland.1 It was the first time since the 10th century that the name and entity of “Bosnia” had disappeared from world maps. While BiH’s “disappearance” would be short lived (by 1945 Bosnia-Herzegovina had been restored as a socialist republic within the new Yugoslav federation), the sporazum was one of the first coherent expressions of the symbiotic relationship between Serbian and Croatian nationalisms and their mutual desire to eliminate BiH as both a physical place and philosophical ideal. BiH’s inherently polycultural identity represented an uncomfortable rebuke to ideas that held that Serbs and Croats were homogenous and separate wholes – and attempted to appropriate Bosnian Muslims as merely Islamized Serbs or Croats. As this latter policy became increasingly unviable, extermination became the preferred policy, especially amongst Serbian nationalists, resulting in the genocide of Bosnian Muslims during both World War II and the 1990s. The sporazum would be reincarnated during the so-called Karađorđevo Agreement (1991) and later Graz Agreement (1992), both which again sought to carve up BiH between exclusively Serb(ian) and Croat(ian) nationalists.2 The fascist occupation of Yugoslavia, beginning in 1941, was a cataclysm for BiH especially. Accordingly, the Partisans who fought the occupation represented many of the contradictory tendencies that marked the Yugoslav and Bosnian experience. It is important then that the brunt of the anti-fascist campaign in Yugoslavia took place on the territory of BiH.3 The country’s rough terrain and central position made it an ideal locale for guerrilla organizing. Cities like Bihać and Jajce were the de facto capitals of the liberated Yugoslav territories and would host the two inaugural sessions of the AntiFascist Council of the People's Liberation of Yugoslavia (AVNOJ) in 1942 and 1943. The AVNOJ meetings significantly outlined the future institutional structure of Tito’s Yugoslavia and gained corresponding lore in the state’s future political and social mythology. Yet BiH was important to the Partisans for more than its geography, as its social character represented much of what the Communists strived for their movement to become: a polycultural, people’s republic that bridged the revolutionary spirit of urban working classes with the insurrectionary histories of the rural peasantry, to birth a brand of socialism of a uniquely Yugoslav variety. The execution of these attempts, however, was marked by contradiction and tension. While years of underground organizing and agitating had ably prepared the young Communist cadres for a guerrilla campaign against the fascist occupation, in the end it was not the Partisans who first rose to oppose the invaders. Instead, it was Ibidem, p. 166. Rasmir MAHMUTĆEHAJIĆ, The Denial of Bosnia, University Park, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000, p. xiii. 3 Marko Attila HOARE, The History of Bosnia...cit., p. 256. 1 2 112 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 predominately a Serb peasant insurrection which first took up arms, responding to the attempted genocide of Serbs on the part of the Croatian fascist quislings that occupied the majority of BiH territory – the so-called Ustaša at helm of the newly dubbed Independent State of Croatia (NDH). Thus, from the onset, Communist theorists, who had waited for the “ideal” moment to begin their planned uprising, were forced to adapt to the more organic character of the Bosnian peoples. Marko Attila Hoare writes that as the “Serb peasants arose spontaneously to defend themselves...so the Communists were dragged in and placed at the forefront of a popular rebellion, one over which they had only limited control. In this way, a traditional Serb peasant rebellion arose hand-in-hand with a modern Communist insurgency.”1 The war-time experience in BiH would irrevocably mould the country’s social and political trajectory. The fascist occupation polarized the traditional social cleavages within BiH and created a situation whereby one extremist excess was answered by another. The resistance of Serb peasants to the genocidal intensions of the Croatian Ustaša was responded to by the attempted genocide of Muslim peasants by the Serbian Četniks – monarchist and nationalist guerrillas from Serbia proper who began attempting to ethnically cleanse Bosnian territories for eventual incorporation into a Greater Serbian state. The Ustaša and Četniks would openly collaborate, however, in efforts to curb the advances of the Partisans and shortly after having provided nominal resistance to the fascist occupiers, the Četniks became an exclusively collaborationist movement.2 Both, however, represented the most extremist expression of historic tensions between Serbs and Croats, animated in particular by the experience of the competing nationalisms during the royal period, and between Serb peasants and Muslim landowners, engendered during the long Ottoman episode. In an attempt to defend themselves from their own prospective genocide, some Muslims embraced the fascists as saviours. There was even an ostensibly Muslim SS troop, the so-called Handschar Division, though its leadership remained exclusively German and Croatian.3 The fact that ordinary Muslim peasants had been as badly off as their Christian neighbours under Ottoman, Habsburg, monarchist and Axis administrations mattered little to the extremist ideologues who used the chaos of the war years to advance their megalomaniacal political visions at the expense of traditional polycultural social bonds. While their respective projects failed, they did significant harm to these traditional bonds and subsequent generations of nationalists have constructed elaborate victimization complexes based on this and earlier periods to justify their ongoing oppression and discrimination of the “others.” The eventual liberation of Yugoslavia was, likewise, coloured by this process, evidenced in the contradictory results of the “popular front” approach by Partisans. Their success was ensured by the genuinely polycultural character of the liberation movement’s participants, women and men alike from all ethnic groups and classes. However, it also meant the embrace of significant numbers of defeated Ustaša and Četniks, who ostensibly switched sides to join the Communist cause while maintaining many of their existing fascist, racist and nationalist prejudices, albeit with far more guarded tones. After the war, the new Communist regime went to great lengths to Ibidem, p. 250. Idem, “The Chetniks and the Jews”, Greater Surbiton, September [http://greatersurbiton.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/the-chetniks-and-the-jews/]. 3 Marko Attila HOARE, The History of Bosnia...cit., p. 273. 1 2 24, 2010, 113 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 celebrate the Partisan liberation effort as an endeavour of all the Yugoslav peoples, as organized and expertly executed by the Communist leadership. Yet, such a neat, holistic account was complicated by the difficult realities of the war. Hoare contends that it is “ambiguous just who the revolutionaries and who the conservatives were in the war of the 1940s. For all their desire to break down communal barriers, wipe out superstition, emancipate women and build a modern society, the Communists were the ones fighting to preserve [BiH’s] centuries old multi-ethnic coexistence and restore [BiH’s] traditional internal and external borders; both the coexistence and the borders having come under massive assault under the Yugoslav kingdom and the NDH.”1 He notes that in this respect, it was precisely the forces of nationalism and fascism that represented the “revolution” as the “Ustashas and Chetniks [sic] were each aiming to create totally new borders and a totally unprecedented ethnically ‘pure’ society.”2 His conclusion is in line with an important dimension of my own thesis: BiH as a political and social space where traditional and historic communal practices strongly anticipated and informed the development of modern emancipatory political struggles, the clearest and best expression of which were most certainly the Partisans. This fusion of traditional practices and modern socialist aspirations would come to be a dominant line within the ideological framework of the Yugoslav Communists. Unfortunately, the “purity” of revolutionary idealism and peasant communalism were compromised by the experience of an elitedominated authoritarian state. Unsurprisingly, the Yugoslavia that emerged after World War II was a state beset by contradictory and competing values. Debates on broad organizational and political questions (e.g. authoritarian vs. reformist tendencies within the Party) manifested one definitive set of tensions in the new polity. Residual ethnic tensions from the war and the first Yugoslav experience, that had so polarized the various communities while simultaneously bringing them together into previously unanticipated bonds of solidarity, characterized the other major fault line of the state. Tito’s break with Stalin, the transition from forced collectivization to so-called “worker’s self-management,” and the expulsion of reformers like Milovan Đilas were emblematic of contradictory tendencies of the former. Meanwhile, the reemergence of BiH as a sovereign republic within the Yugoslav federation, continued tensions between Croatia and Serbia (especially after the 1974 Constitutional reforms)3 and the question of BiH’s Muslims (whether considered as a distinct ethnic group, a religious minority, or Islamized Croats or Serbs) were demonstrative of the poignancy of the latter set of issues. The increasing power of the military within the state and the disproportionately Serb character of its command structures fused both problems into a volatile package.4 Despite this, Tito’s Yugoslavia was mostly an overwhelming success story for average Yugoslavs. It was the fruition of a project that had begun to envelop the imagination of local progressives and radicals in the 19th century – a self-organized, mutual-aid oriented union of South Slavs.5 The persistency of this idea, and its Ibidem, p. 308. Ibidem. Josip GLAURDIĆ, The Hour of Europe: Western Powers and the Breakup of Yugoslavia, Yale University Press, New Haven & London, 2011, pp. 15-18. 4 Jasminka UDOVIČKI and James RIDGEWAY, Burn This House: The Making and Unmaking of Yugoslavia, Duke University Press, Durham, 2000, p. 137. 5 Leften S. STAVRIANOS, Balkan Federation...cit. 1 2 3 114 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 “indigenous” roots within the Balkans themselves, is demonstrative of the fact that despite the currency that nationalist mythologies had gained during the same period, large segments of the population still found “Yugoslavism” palatable precisely because of its organic character. The notion of pan-Slavism, as a sort of rudimentary internationalism, required little Marxist proselytizing as in many cases, and certainly in BiH, it was already the lived experience of generations of common people. Nonetheless, the failure of this “organic” Yugoslavism to offer a coherent alternative to the rising tide of ethno-chauvinist nationalism in the late 1980s and early 90s may seem like a rebuke of its popular appeal. Such an argument, however, leaves unaccounted for the elite-driven nature of the Yugoslav collapse. 4. NENAD PEJIĆ AND “POKRET VALTER,” SARAJEVO, 1992 If there were sad ironies in the experience of April 6th 1945 and April 6th 1992, then the period leading up to the latter date shared more than a passing resemblance to the weeks leading up the Austro-Hungarian occupation of BiH in 1878. Unlike 1878 however, the frenzied energy pulsating through the streets of Sarajevo was not geared towards the raising of arms and barricades but rather to the prevention thereof. With Slovenia and Croatia already engulfed in war1, Bosnians held out hope in early 1992 that a similar pattern would not emerge in their republic. After all, even as tensions between the western republics and Milošević’s Serbia escalated towards war, and even after the first multi-party elections had brought to power a crop of nationalist republican leaders, the dominant sentiment continued to hold out for a peaceful solution of some sort. However, as JNA artillery and snipers began taking positions around the capital and Serb militias in eastern BiH began ransacking villages and towns on the border with Serbia, a pronounced sense of panic set in. Disbelief gave way to mobilization and a desperate, citizen-led movement attempted to avert what the political class had seemingly made all but inevitable. Late March and early April of 1992 marked the “month of Valter” – a series of massive month-long demonstrations and actions, drawing crowds of fifty thousand and more, that appealed for peace, and the preservation of “brotherhood and unity” in BiH.2 On April 4th a small, spontaneous protest by 40 some-odd students “demanding the resignation of all political parties” grew overnight to a protest of a hundred thousand people (Pejic 2012).3 The crowds were being encouraged by the production crew, staff, and reporters of Radio Televizija Sarajevo (RTS) who much to the chagrin of the entire political establishment, had begun airing a live, uninterrupted feed of the convergences. At the center of the decision to air this coverage was the production director of RTS, Nenad Pejić, who had decided that the moment for “objective journalism” had long passed; the only opportunity to avert bloodshed now rested with the people of BiH, rising up against their political masters. “For Bosnia’s political parties,” Pejić writes in While the Slovenian conflict had lasted a mere ten days, the situation in Croatia had by the summer of 1992 escalated into full-blown war. 2 Robert J. DONIA, Sarajevo...cit., pp. 279-286. 3 Nenad PEJIC, “How I Failed To Stop The War In Bosnia”, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, April 4, 2012, [http://www.rferl.org/content/how_i_failed_to_stop_the_war_in_bosnia/24537627.html]. 1 115 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 retrospect, “this was the greatest threat ever posed to them. An organic movement was spontaneously demanding their wholesale resignation.”1 Aggressive and direct phone calls from both the leader of the nationalist Bosnian Serbs, Radovan Karadžić, and the Muslim/Bosniak nationalists, Alija Izetbegović, followed with both accusing Pejić of attempting to orchestrate a coup d’état. Instead of terminating the broadcast as demanded, Pejić managed to have both men agree to a debate in the RTS studios, along with the presence of a European mediator, the leader of the main Croat nationalist bloc, Miljenko Brkić, as well as General Milutin Kukanjac of the JNA. The subsequent negotiations were not broadcast, instead another Yugoslav-era Partisan film was aired, the classic Neretva. “Never in my life have I witnessed negotiations that were so important,” Pejić describes, “and were being conducted by individuals that were so irresponsible. Their bigotry, verbal traps, accusations, threats, and half-truths were appalling. They immediately dived into accusing and attacking each other while hundreds of thousands of citizens demanded peace on the streets of Sarajevo.”2 Pejić’s desperation only increased: “At one point [Karadžić] wanted to leave the studio...I held him by his suit as he stood up from the chair. Shortly afterward, [Izetbegović]...wanted to leave as well, so I grabbed him too. I held onto their suit jackets and implored them not to leave. By this point, their security details were on full alert and, like faithful dogs, they were ready to defend their masters. But both...sat down and my sweaty palms released their suit jackets, leaving a little wrinkle on each.”3 Like Princip and Valter before him, Nenad Pejić was a single individual in a moment in time, but representative of far larger historical and social forces. He was the “everyman” [sic] at odds with “his” leaders, the elites of his society in a moment of crisis. While Princip shot Ferdinand in the name of a still nascent and confused conception of Yugoslavia, Valter Perić charged at the fascist occupation under the banner of “brotherhood and unity.” In the streets of Sarajevo, in April of 1992, the chants of “brotherhood and unity” were loud and clear. In a now heartbreaking scene from the live feed of RTS’ coverage, the actor and writer Josip Pejaković is seen, microphone in hand, in a large crowd, imploring the viewers at home to come into the streets. “We have been left to ourselves,” he declares, “...we must show them that we can come to an agreement...we must come to an agreement, as we always have. Come to the government buildings, do not be afraid. You miners...you hungry masses, come! We won’t give up Bosnia! We won’t!” (Radio Televizija Sarajevo 1992).4 Now, the crowd has picked up Pejaković’s invocation and is chanting with him. A by-stander is seen leaning into the microphone, shouting “Long live the Partisans!” This was Pejić’s moment; his environment and his politics were the politics of the raja in the streets, friends, neighbors, workers, seniors, and students. These scenes ought to demonstrate that the dissolution of Yugoslavia did not come about because of inevitable “ancient ethnic hatreds” bubbling to the top, from the depths of some primordial soup. Rather, it came about through the concentrated efforts Ibidem. Ibidem. Ibidem. RADIO TELEVIZIJA SARAJEVO, “Dnevnik”, Sarajevo, SR Bosnia-Herzegovina, April 5, 1992, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBbXRFzn1mo&feature=results_main&playnext=1&list=PLF93FC8 9EEF593118]. 1 2 3 4 116 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 of unaccountable elites, primarily in Belgrade, seeking to preserve their political power in a society in economic and social crisis. By replacing the Titoist ideological social framework with an aggressively Serbian nationalist one, Milošević, in particular, was able maintain the essential authoritarian character of the Communist regime while channelling popular dissatisfaction in Serbia not into political reform but rather ethno-nationalism. The “anti-bureaucratic revolution” that Milošević subsequently led, installing sympathetic nationalist hardliners in Kosovo, Vojvodina and Montenegro under the guise of a popular insurrection from 1988 to 1989, in order to secure his grip on the Yugoslav presidency, was emblematic of this process. Any serious investigation of this process clearly demonstrates that when actual violence finally did break out, it was not the result of some latent inter-communal animosity but rather elite orchestrated propaganda and economic dispossession.1 Karadžić’s and Izetbegović’s phone calls to Pejić are indicative of what these elites thought of genuine popular mobilization. If the crisis that led to the country’s fracturing had been a years-long process, the opposition to this had been as well. Lacking the opportunity and experience of a substantive democratic culture, however, this opposition took on a particular character. This was most readily evident in the popular Yugoslav cultural discourse, and BiH in particular became the epicentre of these new movements. In the 1970s and 80s there emerged in Yugoslavia a vibrant popular music scene, whose embrace of the rock and roll ethos was not merely isolated to a love of power chords but also to lyrics infused with social critique. The so-called New Partisans and New Primitives represented two faces of this musical turn.2 Commenting on a collection of bands whose biggest hits continue enjoy regular airplay across the Balkans and whose concerts attract massive audiences in the Yugoslav diaspora, Dalibor Mišina writes that “the socio-cultural praxis of New Partisans was animated by militant Yugoslavism as a counter-logic to the nationalist dissolution of a distinctly Yugoslav fabric of the socialist community in crisis. Thus, the movement’s revolutionary ‘spirit of reconstruction’ permeating its poetics of the patriotic was a mechanism of socio-cultural resistance to political, cultural and moralethical de-Yugoslavization of Yugoslav society.”3 By fusing both the themes and melodies of Partisan revolutionary songs, rock ‘n roll ballads and traditional Yugoslav folk music, these bands attempted a “conscious and deliberate integration of the folkloric and revolutionary stylistic and musical idioms into the rock music template as a strategy for evoking and mobilizing the broadly appealing patriotic sentiments among their audiences.”4 It was a youthful reworking of the marriage between working class militancy and the traditions of peasant insurrections that had guided the original Partisans during the guerilla years. Mišina notes that emergence of the New Partisans, specifically, in Sarajevo was a reflection of the important historic and cultural position the city enjoyed within Yugoslavia as a whole. This is not coincidental, he writes, “and has to do with Sarajevo’s reputation at the time as the most Yugoslav city of Yugoslavia. Just as [BiH] was, for a variety of cultural and ideological reasons, considered the most Yugoslav republic in a V.P. GAGNON, The Myth of Ethnic War: Serbia and Croatia in the 1990s, Ithaca & London, Cornell University Press, 2004. 2 Dalibor MIŠINA,“Spit and Sing, My Yugoslavia: New Partisans, social critique and Bosnian poetics of the patriotic”, Nationalities Papers, 2010, p. 266. 3 Ibidem. 4 Ibidem, p. 268. 1 117 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 sense that it was perceived as the most harmoniously multicultural and, in that, a model of what the whole country was supposed to be like, Sarajevo, as the most Bosnian city of all (meaning the most multicultural, open, and unsuspecting of the ‘others’), enjoyed the reputation of being the epicentre of a specifically Yugoslav brand of socio-cultural arrangement.”1 “In other words,” he concludes, “Sarajevo was in many respects thought of as Yugoslavia condensed into one city.”2 In contrast to the New Partisans “militant Yugoslavism”, Sarajevo also gave birth to the so called New Primitives, an “authentic Yugoslav answer to punk.”3 The Primitives were a loose association of young comedians, musicians and entertainers who, beginning in 1981, introduced into Yugoslav popular culture, arguably for the first time, a genuine, Bosnian, specifically Sarajevan voice. Almost invariably, their skits and songs dealt with the misadventures of street kids, petty crooks, corrupt politicians, bamboozled workers, and uneducated peasants. The absurdist character of their work, however, was underlined by serious political messages. The now infamous Top Lista Nadrealista (Top List of Surrealists) program gained popularity and notoriety for the scathing nature of its comedy: a typical skit featured a visit to a “factory for the production of nothing”; another portrayed the hiring of new University grandaunts as statutes in government offices as a measure to deal with chronic unemployment. Today, the program is perhaps best remembered for the almost (appropriately) surreal prognostic qualities of many of the troops’ sketches: one classic example featured a news report on “rising ethnic tensions in northern Sweden between Eskimos and penguins,” fuelled by the desire of the region to secede and join with its “motherland, the Arctic”.4 This sort of grim, bitter-sweet satire represented the fears and efforts of BiH’s “street intellectuals” to offer a counter narrative to the increasingly dominant discourse of “ethnic tensions” and economic instability that threatened to tear apart the unique polycultural and cosmopolitan space that Sarajevo had become. While the supposed “backwardness” of Bosnians and Yugoslavs as a whole was a frequent point of mockery, in the overall narrative, the picture the group presented of their society was one of a well-meaning, simple people betrayed by corrupt and duplicitous politicians. The role of the New Primitives in this process was to act as the voice of a disillusioned youth, who while exposing the grime beneath the idealism of their parent’s generation, nonetheless strived to preserve BiH and Yugoslavia in their own way.5 It was the voice of the raja and voices such as these formed the chorus to the hopeful pleading and cajoling of Nenad Pejić and the masses that had gathered in Sarajevo under the banner of Valter. 5. CONCLUSIONS This discussion was framed as a selection of “moments” embodied in the persons of Princip, Perić and Pejić – yet they are but representatives. On the one hand, all three individuals represent the organic, mobilized and political character of the Ibidem, p. 266. Ibidem. Amir TELIBEČIROVIĆ, “Sarajevska verzija Montija Pajtona”, Protest.ba, February 19, 2011, [http://protest.ba/v2/sarajevska-verzija-montija-pajtona/]. 4 Ibidem. 5 Gramscian “organic intellectuals” of a sort. 1 2 3 118 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 Bosnian people throughout their modern history. Yet all three also represent moments or perhaps rather periods of betrayal. Princip’s confused idealism was preceded by revolutionary indignation on the part of the raja, but ultimately gave way to Serb nationalist monarchism. Perić’s valiant anti-fascism and sacrifice under the flag of “brotherhood and unity” rejected the monarchy but much like Princip embraced the ideal of Yugoslavia. However, it too gave way to authoritarianism of a different sort – albeit one far more benevolent and preferable to any that had preceded or followed it. At best, the cultural values that Perić came to symbolize allowed for the likes of Pejić and the citizens of Sarajevo to stage their last ditch effort at preserving the country and the peace, and for the decade of youthful criticism that had preceded them. It is what occurred in between these moments, however, that tells us more about BiH’s and, of course, Yugoslavia’s fate in the 20th and now the 21st century. The states that emerged in the wake of all these potential “openings,” all devoted themselves, foremost, to a depoliticization of the masses. The consolidation of state authority meant that politics would not and could not be a popular exercise and as such, beyond all their ideological differences, what all these regimes shared was a profound suspicion and resentment of genuine democratic participation. In the end, this was to be their undoing. Moments when it became apparent that these state projects were in dire need of reform or transition were ignored. Worse still, the popular energy calling for change(s) was channelled and re-engineered to reactionary ends – to buttress one elite clique against another. Nonetheless, the relatively open political culture that existed in Yugoslavia and BiH by the 1980s meant that the memory and the promise of past revolutions, insurrections, popular uprisings and, most importantly, the lived experience of polycultural life in urban centers like Sarajevo informed what could have been a genuine movement of popular resistance. Ironically, precisely in that moment in which one most clearly saw elites trying to direct the course of events, one saw ordinary citizens cutting their strings and refusing to be led into the maelstrom of war. That their effort failed should not be seen as a vindication of the tepid cry of “too little, too late” or worse still, a supposed reflection of the still greater power of “ancient ethnic hatreds.” When we look at the fractured, apartheid-like “peace” that reigns in BiH today, that has left the same political class and their chauvinistic ideals in power that led the region into war in the first place, we would do well to recall those heady days in the streets of Sarajevo – in 1878, 1914, 1945 and 1992. Because it is genuine, popular, democratic politics that has been betrayed and denied to the Bosnian people, to the raja, it is this fact, above all others, that explains the imprisoned “state” in which they find themselves in still. Meaningful “stability,” regardless of its ideological veneer, must be cemented in popular political participation. Recognizing and implementing this fact remains the central challenge of Bosnian political life – then as now. Bibliography ANSCOMBE, Frederick F., “The Balkan Revolutionary Age”, The Journal of Modern History, 2012, pp. 572-606. 119 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 BANAC, Ivo, The National Question in Yugoslavia: Origins, History, Politics, Cornell University Press, London & Ithaca, 1988. BOUGAREL, Xavier, “Yugoslav Wars: The ‘Revenge of the Countryside’ Between Sociological Reality and Nationalist Myth”, East European Quarterly, 1999, pp. 157-175. DEDIJER, Vladimir, “Sarajevo Fifty Years After”, Foreign Affairs, 1964, pp. 569-584. DONIA, Robert J., Sarajevo: A Biography, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 2006. GAGNON, V.P., The Myth of Ethnic War: Serbia and Croatia in the 1990s, Cornell University Press, Ithaca & London, 2004. GLAURDIĆ, Josip, The Hour of Europe: Western Powers and the Breakup of Yugoslavia, Yale University Press, New Haven & London, 2011. HOARE, Marko Attila, “The Chetniks and the Jews”, Greater Surbiton, September 24, 2010. [http://greatersurbiton.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/the-chetniks-and-thejews/]. HOARE, Marko Attila, The History of Bosnia: From the Middle Ages to the Present Day, Saqi Books, London, 2007. KANIN, David B., “Big Men, Corruption and Crime”, International Politics, 2003, pp. 491526. LOVRENOVIĆ, Ivan, Bosnia: A Cultural History, New York University Press, New York, 2001. MAHMUTĆEHAJIĆ, Rasmir, The Denial of Bosnia, University of Pennsylvania Press, University Park, 2000. MALCOLM, Noel, Bosnia: A Short History, Macmillian London Limited, London, 1994. MIŠINA, Dalibor, “’Spit and Sing, My Yugoslavia’: New Partisans, social critique and Bosnian poetics of the patriotic”, Nationalities Papers, 2010, pp. 265-289. PEJIC, Nenad, “How I Failed To Stop The War In Bosnia”, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty . April 4, 2012. [http://www.rferl.org/content/how_i_failed_to_stop_the_war_in_bosnia/24537627 .html]. RADIO TELEVIZIJA SARAJEVO, “Dnevnik”. Sarajevo, SR Bosnia-Herzegovina, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBbXRFzn1mo&feature=results_main&playne xt=1&list=PLF93FC89EEF593118]. STAVRIANOS, Letften S., Balkan Federation: A History of the Movement Toward Balkan Unity in Modern Times, Department of History of Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, 1942. STEFFANSON, Anders, “Urban Exile: Locals, Newcomers and the Cultural Transformation of Sarajevo”, in Xavier BOUGAREL, Elissa HELMS and Gerlachlus DUIJZING, The New Bosnian Mosaic: Identities, Memories and Moral Claims in a Post-war Society, Ashgate Publishing Company, Burlington, 2007. TELIBEČIROVIĆ, Amir, “Sarajevska verzija Montija Pajtona”, Protest.ba., February 19, 2011. [http://protest.ba/v2/sarajevska-verzija-montija-pajtona/]. UDOVIČKI, Jasminka, James RIDGEWAY, Burn This House: The Making and Unmaking of Yugoslavia, Duke University Press, Durham, 2000. VELIKONJA, Mitja, Religious Separation and Political Intolerance in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Texas A&M University Press, College Station, 2003. WOODCOCK, George, Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements, Meridian Books, Cleveland & New York, 1962. 120 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 Consociation in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Practical Implementation of the Theoretical Principles Lejla BALIĆ University of Sarajevo Midhat IZMIRLIJA University of Sarajevo Abstract: Bosnia and Herzegovina, as a (post)conflict society, is based on minimum consensus which equals “consent to peace” where most citizens and political elites refuse the necessary improvement of the existing system. The principle of belonging to a certain ethnic group dominates in a divided society, thus becoming the base for political organisation. In a consociational democracy, political competition does not take place between ethnic groups, but within each ethnic group, while the decision-making process is shifted to a close circle of political elites, primarily in the circle of ethnic group leaders. The problem of building a sustainable and functional state is recognised, principally, with the fact that the consociational democracy in BiH is reduced to the preservation of peace, without standing a chance that at a certain point it would turn to a classic democratic system. Keywords: consociational democracy, minimum consensus, grand coalition, political parties, ethnic groups. 1. INTRODUCTION Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) is an example of a complex political system, which is the result of an extremely divided society and a constitutional framework that maintains a state of fragmentation. The constitutional system follows a “power-sharing” model in which the collective rights of three dominant ethnic groups (constituent peoples) take precedence over the rights of the individual/citizen. Belonging to an ethnic group became the foundation of political interest, and national1 political parties are seen as the only legitimate representatives of each group, which along with violent the territorialisation of the ethnic element2 results in leading the politics only within each ethnic group/constituent peoples. The consequence of such a policy is that “joint” decision-making at the state level is shifted outside of the envisaged constitutional institutions and limits itself to inter-party negotiations, cooperation and collusion of political leaders as “exclusive” representatives of particular groups. In the theory of consociational democracy, such a role of political elites is referred to as the notion of The terms of nation/national in this paper refer to ethnic group/belonging to an ethnic group. The basis for the internal territorial division of the state in two entities was the acquired position of the military forces during the war which was confirmed by Annex IV of the Dayton Agreement which states that BiH shall consist of two entities: the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republika Srpska. 1 2 121 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 grand coalition. Lijphart defines the “grand coalition” as the most important element of a consociational democracy1 which we believe is used as the model of organisation of BiH. This paper will present the concept and functioning of the grand coalition, including other characteristics of consociational democracy, the proportional and parity representation of ethnic groups, as well as the veto power and autonomy of the ethnic groups in the political system of BiH. The case of Bosnia and Herzegovina shows that it is unlikely that the model of a consociational set-up shall transform into a standard democratic system, which in principle is the main objective of Lijphart’s idea.2 The international community representatives3 in Bosnia and Herzegovina expected, we may add, unrealistically, that the stabilisation of the internal conditions and changed social circumstances would lead to a convergence of the antagonised sides, and that the constitutional system would be improved by the institutional action of the democratically elected governments. However, the imposed constitutional model that decentralises and deinstitutionalises the decision-making process, disables, in practice, the establishment of an effective state, and represents nothing more than an attempt of a “trade-off” between accepting a weak state or conflict that would result in the state’s collapse.4 Therefore, the problem of building a sustainable and functional state lies in understanding the concept of society stabilisation identified with the preservation of peace which is insufficient, and serves as an excuse to national political elites’ representatives to avoid responsibility. Although it is clear that the current system in Bosnia-Herzegovina is ineffective, oligarchic, and non-transparent, it will still not be improved, because the minimum consensus has been reduced to consent to peace. 2. THE MINIMUM CONSENSUS A key condition for the functioning of any democratic society and state is the existence of minimum consensus between political subjects about accepting the community in which they live. When talking about a pluralistic society and a democratic multiethnic state, then the minimum consensus among all ethnic groups about a common state constitutes a rather complex theoretical and practical issue. Achieving the minimum consensus can be based on different motives, such as the preservation of identity, financial stability, or social welfare which corresponds to Scharpf’s understanding of “output” legitimacy.5 The minimum consensus can even be reached in 1 Arend LIJPHART, Demokracija u pluralnim društvima (Democracy in Plural Societies), Školska knjiga, Zagreb, 1992, p. 32. 2 Ibidem, p. 227. 3 Venice Commission Opinion on the Constitutional situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina and powers of the High Representative, number CDL-AD (2005) 004, paragraph 14 and 23, 2005, available at: http://www.venice.coe.int/docs/2005/CDL-AD(2005)004-bos.asp. 4 Marcus COX, State Building and post conflict reconstruction: Lessons from Bosnia, CASIN, Geneva, 2001, p. 6. 5 Fritz SCHARPF, Problem-solving Effectiveness and Democratic Accountability in the European Union, Max Institute for the Study of Societies, Working Paper 03/1, 2003, available at: http://www.mpifg.de. 122 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 a flawed or an incomplete constitutional system, in other words, sometimes the minimum consensus constitutes the only alternative to conflict.1 In this regard, the question is whether accepting the existing constitutional framework, which ended the war, also represents a minimum consensus of ethnic groups. Although we cannot talk of a formally defined minimum consensus about the existing constitutional framework, as the Constitution of BiH has never passed the process of adoption,2 we take it as a starting point for determining the minimum consensus, as political entities of all ethnic groups operate within the given system thus making it legitimate. Thus, in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the minimum consensus for living in a single state is seen as “consent to peace”.3 However, the problem resides in the interpretation of “consent to peace” by different ethnic groups and political elites. Understanding the content of consenting to peace varies from the desire to preserve the country as a whole to the desire to preserve the established “state creations” during the war. The different understanding of the “minimum consensus” causes constant tensions and resistance among the dominant ethnic groups, which complicates the decision-making process, making thereby the already weak constitutional organisation even more ineffective. In general, the theory recognises that the principal risk in establishing a new constitutional organisation is that the key political actors refuse to participate in the new political institutions, causing the fall of the constitutional order.4 Bearing in mind the paradoxical situation existing in BiH as to the implementation of the Peace Agreement, the implementation of the Constitution depending on those who are most likely to sabotage, the risk of disintegration of the constitutional order becomes more than certain.5 As the imposed constitutional solutions were getting implemented, it became apparent that they were not sufficient for the state’s successful functioning and that there was necessary to upgrade the system by expanding the competencies of the state authority. In this regard, the Constitution left the possibility of transferring competencies from an entity to BiH institutions with the entity’s consent. Although it was expected that political leaders would recognize the importance of upgrading the state system which would guarantee stability and prosperity to all represented groups, it soon became clear that minimum consensus applied only to the imposed constitutional framework. More specifically, no law that would improve the system and contribute to meeting the conditions for Euro-Atlantic integration has been passed by the legislature, but rather by the representatives of the international community.6 Additionally, it should be emphasised that initiatives of individual political parties, as well as civil society organisations and individuals, have followed the division in society and the state and as 1 For further information, see the theoretical considerations in Brendan O’LEARY, “Debating Consociational Politics”, in Sid NOEL (ed.) From Power Sharing to Democracy, McGill – Queen's University Press Quebec, 2005, pp. 10-11. 2 E.g. parliamentary procedure and adoption, referendum, ratification. 3 Mirjana KASAPOVIĆ, Bosna i Hercegovina podijeljeno društvo i nestabilna država (Bosnia and Herzegovina Divided Society and Unstable State), Politička kultura, Zagreb, 2005, p. 163. 4 Marcus COX, State… cit., p. 6. 5 Roberto BELLONI, “Peace Building and Consociational Electoral Engineering in Bosnia and Herzegovina”, International Peacekeeping, Vol. 11, No. 2, Routledge, London, 2006, p. 338. 6 E.g. BiH Election Law, the Law on the Flag and Coat of Arms of BiH, Law on National Anthem, Law on State Border Service in BiH. 123 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 such provoked the resistance of other ethnic groups. An obvious example of this was the general elections campaign in 2006, when there were demands to abolish the entities, on the one hand, in favour of the secession, and independence of the entity, on the other hand. All these were reasons enough for the international community to take the initiative, especially in the early post-war years, to improve the constitutional system by strengthening its own authority.1 The question is, therefore, whether such a definition of the minimum consensus, barring the influence of the international community, can be the basis for the long-term stability of the country, taking into account the evolution of society. It should be kept in mind that a low standard of living and the state of social insecurity will not contribute to raise the feeling of attachment towards the state, but the adopted constitutional changes would also be questionable. 3. POLITICAL PARTIES AND GRAND COALITION IN BIH The constitutional reforms of 1990 were the most important reforms in the process of democratization in BiH society which declared freedom of political organisation and transformation of a one-party political system into a multiparty democracy. Already during the first free democratic elections, two basic models of party organisation were evident. One model of party organisation was characterised by programmes based, above all, on the protection and promotion of ethnic interests, leading to a nearly hundred per cent ethnically homogeneous membership. The second model of organisation followed the principles of multi-ethnicity and a citizen-oriented political programme. In other words, the newly formed parties organised on the ethnic principle won the majority of votes – 84%. Thus, since 1990, the affiliation with a particular ethnic group was already the basis of political organisation in BiH.2 According to Šarčević, under the conditions of the then republic constitutional system, the “agreement of peoples” could not be reached without the destruction of its civic element and territorialisation of the ethnic principle.3 The ethnic fragmentation of the society, accentuated by the state’s division into entities and ethnic groups as the main political subjects, confirmed the principle of ethnic belonging as basis for organising political parties. And so, during the first post-war elections of 1996, major national parties obtained an almost identical election result of 85% of votes, as compared to 1990. The name and programme declaration of a specific political party is not the criterion which determines the character of a political party in BiH. The ideological orientation of a political party in BiH is primarily determined by pragmatic stances which leaders take towards key issues and problems in BiH, followed by the actions of the leaders and leading party members, and the content of their speeches when addressing voters and party members. Conclusions from the Peace Implementation Conference that was held in Bonn on 09. and 10.12.1997 introducing the so-called Bonn Powers. 2 Mirko PEJANOVIĆ, “The Genesis of Political Pluralism Development in BiH”, in Zoran LOTIVAC (ed.) Political Parties and Voters in the States of the Former Yugoslavia, Beograd, 2006, pp. 237-252, p. 239. 3 Edin ŠARČEVIĆ, Ustav iz nužde (The Emergency Constitution), Rabic, Sarajevo, 2010, p. 98. 1 124 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 When we talk about the political organisation of Bosniaks, as the most numerous ethnic group in BiH, then the most significant is the Party of Democratic Action (SDA), which since 1990 has enjoyed the greatest support among Bosniaks. The initial programme goals of SDA were the protection of Bosniaks and their status in SFRY. Party president Alija Izetbegović was head of state during the 1992-1995 war, while SDA representatives believe that the party contributed the most to the independence of BiH. SDA represents a typical “peoples” party whose programme views from 1992 to 2010 significantly shifted from hard right to a centre right party. The reform of SDA was marked by the inclusion of a small number of members from other ethnic groups to central party bodies. Internal party reforms were not supported by all party members, some of whom resigned as members and formed new political parties that they believed were the true successors of the pre-war SDA. The second political party which at certain times won a significant number of Bosniak votes is the Party for BiH (SBiH). This is the most significant of the political parties established in 1996 by disgruntled SDA members. This party, even though declared as a multi-ethnic party, in certain situations by decisions of the party leader and central party bodies further radicalised the inter-ethnic relations in BiH. For the past two years, SBiH has been in opposition. However, since 1996 to 2010 this party was always in power, participating in the distribution of offices and not being picky when choosing coalition partners. During the last elections they saw the debacle followed by inter-party conflicts and collapse of party organisation. The third political party that has the support of the Bosniak electorate is the Party for Better Future (SBB). SBB is a new party on the political scene in BiH, established in 2010. The party leadership, by highlighting candidates belonging to different ethnic groups, and through its name, attempted to present themselves as a political party for all ethnic groups. In reality, by neglecting the RS and focusing on the interests of Bosniaks, thereby establishing rivalry with Bosniak political parties, SBB in fact defined itself as an ethnic party. Within the Croat ethnic group, the Croat Democratic Union (HDZ BiH) has been the dominant political party since its establishment in 1990. HDZ BiH, with its programme, name and activities of political representatives is solely a party for the Croat ethnic group and can be characterised as a national party of ‘right’ provenance. The greatest crises were in 2006, after losing internal elections; Božo Ljubić with part of the membership proclaimed themselves as sole legitimate representative of the interests and goals of the Croat people and founded HDZ 1990. Today both parties, HDZ BiH and HDZ 1990, in coalition, have no significant differences in their programmes or political activities. When we talk about the Croat ethnic group it is important to mention the Croat Party of Rights Đapić-dr. Jurišić. Namely, in 2004, the process of unifying several legalist parties, which had been getting fewer votes, into one party under the auspices of HSP of Croatia was completed. Although this party, with a programme and activities that are of the ideological right, since 2010 they have been in coalition with civil multi-ethnic parties. The Serb Democratic Party (SDS) was a political representative of the Serb ethnic group resulted from the first multiparty elections of 1990 until general elections in 1998. SDS is the first of the three ethnic pre-war parties that lost majority support within 125 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 their ethnic group. It is important to emphasise that the complete SDS leadership of 1992 was indicted and convicted for war crimes before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague. A certain number of pre-war SDS leaders have already served their sentences, while court processes against some others are still on-going. Moreover, a certain number of political representatives of this party were removed from party and public functions by decisions of the High Representative, while the party was subject to a number of financial sanctions. This resulted in the dispersal of its membership, which weakened its organisational structure and led to poor results in the next elections. In 1998 Biljana Plavšić left the party and with her followers she founded the Serb Peoples Union (SNS), and in coalition with the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) consequently established the Government in RS. After Biljana Plavšić was convicted for war crimes, SNS practically disappeared from the political scene, while SNSD support increased with each election cycle. SNSD was established in 1996 and for the next ten years was in opposition at the state level. During that period SNSD was a centre-left party with moderate positions, in which parties from FBiH with a similar ideological orientation found a political interlocutor. The peak of cooperation was the signing of a common platform in 2003 between the leaders of SNSD, SDP, SP1 and NHI2 that preceded the “April package”, pledging mutual support for a proposed constitutional reform. After the rejection of the April package, SNSD took up and kept the rhetoric of a more radical party and in 2006, during the pre-election campaign, openly called for secession of RS that resulted in winning majority of votes in RS. The Party of Democratic Progress (PDP) was established in 1999 and defines itself as a centre-right party and operates within the Serb ethnic group. Regardless of its programme orientation, since its establishment until the last elections, PDP participated in governing coalitions with parties of different ideological orientations. The Social Democratic Party (SDP) is currently one of the leading parties in political life in BiH. It evolved from the former Communist League of Bosnia and Herzegovina and finished by defining itself as a party of modern left orientation. By name, orientation, and political activity, SDP presents itself as a multi-ethnic party that acts on the entire territory of BiH. The representatives of all three ethnic groups are present in the organs of the party, and all three ethnic groups were on its electoral lists. Although SDP defines itself as a civic party, the fact is that this party gets most of its votes from areas where the Bosniak ethnic group makes majority. In this regard, parties of the Croat and Serb ethnic groups dispute the multi-ethnic character of SDP and consider it a Bosniak party. On the other hand, parties that operate within the Bosniak ethnic group consider SDP as a party that does not articulate the interests of Bosniaks in the right way. Although when establishing coalitions, SDP insisted on joint programmes, there are cases when they entered coalitions with parties of different ideological orientation. 1 SP (Socialist Party) was founded in 1993 and represents a party of Serb ethnic group with negligible impact which was in close relations with Slobodan Milošević’s Socialist Party. After internal turmoil, from this party emerged two parties – Democratic Socialist Party that later entered the framework of SNSD, as well as Peoples Democratic Party and New Socialist Party. 2 NHI (New Croat Initiative) represents a party of the Croat ethnic group, with negligible impact, which was established after the former leader of HDZ BiH lost the inter-party election. 126 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 “Our Party” (NS) was established in 2008, embarked on a new course called “the third way”, but still retained liberalism as its ideological commitment and a multiethnic membership. In the elections of 2010, NS had not experienced significant success. They had counted on votes from citizens who usually abstain from elections or those that do not support parties of certain ethnic groups. The Peoples Party “Work for Progress” (NSRZB) was established in 2001 as a political party of the centre which includes members of all ethnic groups. The representatives of this party, in various state institutions, usually vote in a block with SDP, with whom they are in coalition. The most significant element that is common to all Bosniak parties is the advocacy of broad Constitutional reform, more particularly by strengthening the state institutions, and a long term vision of abolishing entities as war creations which are the result of ethnic cleansing and genocide. Solving the “Croat question” in BiH through further federalisation represents the backbone of activities of the aforementioned political parties of the Croat ethnic group, while the parties that operate within the Serb ethnic group advocate the preservation of the status quo, by opposing the strengthening of the state and evolution of the constitutional system, regardless of how much it can contribute to overall progress. Maintaining the position of the entity within the existing constitutional system is primary and unquestionable for these political parties. On the other hand, multi-ethnic parties in BiH insist on developing the democratic state by improving the constitutional system with a different regional organisation of the state, which does not exclude a certain degree of federalism, and continuation of reforms. It should be borne in mind that for two decades the political life in BiH was marked by constant inter-party turmoil within all ethnic groups, and it is almost a rule that after every party congress disgruntled members depart and form new political parties. It appears too many that in post-conflict states political parties are undemocratic and even if there are mechanisms of interparty control, the leaders usually manipulate them. An equal ideological orientation as the basis for inter-party cooperation from different ethnic groups occurs sporadically and is more likely when parties are in opposition rather than in power.1 In the event that political parties do form a government, then the only common programmatic issue is the appointment to different functions, while other issues, including the coalition political programmes, are pushed aside.2 That being so, we can conclude that political parties constitute the organised political manifestation of ethnic groups. Such a party system implies that in BiH, with certain exceptions, there is no political competition between ethnic groups, but only within certain ethnic group, while elections represent a de facto selection of the leader of a particular ethnic group who will, in the post-election period, be part of the “grand coalition” and negotiate with leaders of other ethnic groups. This fact implies that the driving force of the political system in BiH is made of the leaders of political parties, at the same time leaders of ethnic groups, who consider themselves legitimate decisionmakers. Such a set position of the leaders corresponds to the theoretical definition of a An example of programme cooperation between opposition parties is the signing of the platform by SNSD, SDP, SP and NHI leaders in 2003. 2 Mirko PEJANOVIĆ, The Genesis…cit., p. 243. 1 127 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 “grand coalition”, as the most important element in a consociational democracy.1 The functioning of a grand coalition is also conditioned by the constitutional framework, which follows the principle of ethnic parity and proportionality with a view to establishing the state political bodies and functioning of state authority. The absence of a common political programme is expected if one bears in mind the radically different ideas on BiH organisation, even within a single ethnic group, and among political parties representing them. The Bosniaks’ political representatives see the existence of entities and the possibility of blocking joint institutions as the basic problem in a developing country, the Croats’ representatives demand further territorialisation of BiH by establishing a third “Croat” entity, while Serb representatives call for the secession of RS and disintegration of BiH. In these complex relations between ethnic groups and their political representatives, the role of political parties and what inter-party cooperation really means becomes an issue. In BiH, inter-party cooperation happens at two levels. One level presents informal agreement among political leaders which should result in its implementation by formal institutions. The other level of inter-party cooperation is carried out within the institutions of the system in two ways: one way of cooperation is the participation of political party representatives in the legislative and executive authority, which will be explained more thoroughly in the next chapter, and the second way of cooperation constitutes formal inter-party agreements on joint stances, as well as party coalitions. Political life in BiH confines itself to negotiations between political leaders who out-of-institutions coordinate positions related to important constitutional, economic and other issues, and engage themselves to implement the agreed policies through their representatives in government institutions at all levels. An example of the aforementioned case is the harmonisation of proposals for Constitutional amendments (the so-called April package), as well as Butmir, Prud agreement, etc.2 More precisely, due to deep divisions between ethnic groups, informal agreements among leaders often take place under the pressure of the international community representatives, while reached agreements should be transferred to institutions. Talks among the leaders are focused on the most important state issues, such as reform of the constitutional system and harmonisation with the European Convention on Human Rights, issues related to state property, census, and similar issues. Despite the fact that in specific issues (e.g. agreement on state property), during the informal Arend LIJPHART, Demokracija…cit., p. 32. The April package is the informal agreement of political leaders to amend the Constitution when they succeeded to rise above the dominant atmosphere of fear that prevailed in the country and when they made mutual concessions, was transferred to the institutions of the system. The proposed amendments to the Constitution were not supported in the BiH Parliament, although the International Community insisted on their adoption. The representatives of Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats, who enjoyed the greatest support within their respective ethic group, attempted in Prud in 2008 to renew the discussions on fundamental issues related to the functioning of the state. The subject of the discussion was the need of reform of the constitutional system and harmonisation with the European Convention on Human Rights, as well as state property, census, and the reconstruction of the Council of Ministers. Unlike the “April package” the “Prud Agreement” did not make a single concrete proposal on how to reform the Constitution. Although these political parties had majority in the institutions, issues discussed in Prud never made it to state authorities. The proposal of changes to the Constitution of BiH known as “Butmir package” was initiated by representatives of the USA and EU with five ruling and two opposition parties in 2009. But in the end, “Butmir package” was rejected. 1 2 128 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 meetings of the leaders, agreements which are reached are often not taken into account or institutionalised in the state bodies (exception was the aforementioned April package). As an additional argument we present the non-implementation of the Judgment of the European Court in the Sejdić and Finci case.1 Thus, although BiH is obligated to implement the Court’s decisions, its leaders failed to take the responsibility and reach an agreement as to the reform of the Constitution and the Election Law which derives from the mentioned decision of the European Court.2 The essential question is to determine the criteria upon which a grand coalition is formed. Although the theoretical model emphasises that for a grand coalition to exist there is no need of formal institutionalisation, but only participation of the leaders in the grand coalition, in terms of negotiations on the most important national issues, the dilemma is whether this is sufficient or not. The practical realisation of a grand coalition as an informal group of ethnic group leaders should result in an agreement that is transferred to the institutions where the leaders’ decisions are reinforced by a formal procedure. This is exactly what Lijphart refers to when he points out that, despite deep ethnic group differences, for successful realisation of consociational democracy. “[...] the leaders should reasonably feel affection in preserving the unity of the state and democratic system. Furthermore, they must be basically willing to participate in cooperation with the leaders of other ethnic groups and in the spirit of moderation and mutual concessions.”3 By answering the question as to why a grand coalition does not yield the expected results, respectively, why the agreement is not implemented by the institutions of the system, we can find the answer through the fact that the leaders have no desire to improve the state system, because they see the minimum consensus as “consent to peace”. It is quite expected that the grand coalition cannot function in practice, having in mind the radically different ideas on the organisation of BiH, both within a particular ethnic group and at the level of the political parties that represent them.4 The aforesaid is supported by the fact that when there is a request to strengthen the state, as a reaction we have a message about the “death of the state”5, as the only alternative to Dayton’s solutions which further radicalises the political situation as it threatens with the collapse. All the mentioned situations go in favour of the statement that the decisionmaking process became alienated from most citizens, that is, members of ethnic groups 1 Dervo Sejdić and Jakob Finci declare themselves as being of Roma and Jewish origins, stating that they do not pretend to be members of one of the “constituent peoples”, and as such are hindered from running for the elections in the House of Peoples of BiH PA and BiH Presidency. The judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in the case Sejdić and Finci against BiH no. 27996/06 and 34836/06 dated 22.12.2009, is available at: http://www.mhrr.gov.ba/ured_zastupnika/novosti/default.aspx?id=1008&langTag=bs-BA. 2 The Parliamentary Assembly of BiH has established Ad hoc Committee of both Houses for the implementation of the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in the case Sejdić and Finci against BiH. The task of the Committee was to propose amendments to the BiH Constitution and submit them to parliamentary procedure until 30.11.2011, and by 31.12.2011 prepare Proposed Law on Changes and Amendments of the BiH Election Law. It was expected that the Committee will not reach consensus having in mind the absence of agreement of ethnic group leaders on the implementation of the decision. 3 Arend LIJPHART, Demokracija…cit., p. 59. 4 Bosniak political representatives, as main problem in developing the state, seek the existence of entities and the possibility of blocking joint institutions; Croat representatives demand further territorialisation of BiH by introducing the third “Croat” entity, while Serb representatives call for the secession of RS and the fall of BiH. 5The Interview of the President of Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik given to Tanjug is available at: http://poskok.info/wp/?p=31758 dated 09.01.2013. 129 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 and civil society organisations, and even the institutions that are constitutionally defined as responsible for decision-making are bypassed. While consociational theorists believe that the non-institutional way of negotiating and decision-making – with all the deficiencies related to the establishment of an oligarchic system, deinstitutionalisation of the system and lack of transparency – is acceptable, because “although it is far from the abstract ideals, it is the best kind of democracy that can be expected”1 Unfortunately, in BiH we witness that consociational democracy, hence the grand coalition, is followed by exclusively negative aspects, and that the state system has not become functional and efficient for 18 years, and it is questionable whether it is a democratic one or not. In societies such as Bosnia-Herzegovina the decision-making of leaders does not contribute to the democratisation of society, nor does it establish a form of an oligarchic system and “the politics became an auto referential system, because there is no connection between political parties and society and with this the political system loses its function of governing a society”.2 4. PROPORTIONALITY AND PARITY The BiH Constitution specifies that the structure of the state bodies shall follow two principles: an equal and proportional ethnic representation and a proportional entity representation. The composition of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina that consists of three members follows both principles: one Bosniak and one Croat elected from the Federation of BiH and one Serb elected in Republika Srpska. Members of the Presidency rotate in the position of Chairman every eight months. Any member who dissents from a proposed decision by the Presidency may declare it detrimental to the entity from which he/she is elected and a final decision will be taken by entity representative bodies. Although it was designed that, in line with the principle of ethnic representation of the Presidency members, each ethnic group elects its own representative, the rules of the Election Law left the possibility that in the Federation of BiH members of one ethnic group can vote for a representative from the other ethnic group. In the last two terms the legitimacy of the Croat member of the Presidency, an SDP candidate, was challenged, because he was allegedly elected by the votes of Bosniaks, which worsened the political relations in the country, but also led to the establishment of inter-party cooperation among the Croat community.3 Regarding the election of the members of the Council of Ministers, the Constitution stipulates that no more than two-thirds of all ministers may be appointed from the territory of the Federation. This provision ensures entity representation, while the provision that the Chairman and his deputies cannot be from the same constituent people meets the principle of ethnic representation. The Parliamentary Assembly as a bicameral body consists of the House of Peoples and the House of Representatives. The House of Peoples comprises 15 1 Frank CUNNINGHAM, Teorije demokratije – kritički uvod (Theories of Democracy – A Critical Introduction), Filip Višnjić, Beograd, 2003, p. 146. 2 Michael EHRKE, Social Democratic Parties in Central and Southeast Europe-Political movements or agencies for Government Management?, available at http://www.fes.rs/pa/socijaldempartijejie.pdf. 3 Activation of the Croat National Council. 130 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 delegates, two-thirds from the Federation (including five Croats and five Bosniaks), and five Serbs from Republika Srpska. The caucuses are not organised according to the principle of party affiliation, but ethnically, thus in the House of Peoples there are caucuses of the Bosniak, Serb and Croat peoples. The inter-party cooperation in the House of Peoples is achieved by the activities of the representatives of different political parties within the relevant caucus of constituent peoples. Because the constitutional and election system leans towards collective representation, the inter-party cooperation takes place only within one ethnic group and within one entity, and not between different ethnic groups, thus deepening the existing divisions. With their work, the representatives of political parties in the House of Peoples do not contribute to the democratisation of the society, which according to the theoretical model lies in cooperation and negotiations, but use the system to preserve the status quo. The House of Representatives is organised along the principle of entity representation whereby two-thirds are elected from the territory of the Federation, and one-third from the territory of Republika Srpska. The ethnic principle is reflected in the provision that stipulates that the Speaker and his/her deputies shall be from different constituent peoples and rotate in the position of Speaker. The intention of the drafters of the constitution was to ensure the principle of civic representation in the House of Representatives, although in practice the entity representation principle is transformed to ethnic principle through the so-called procedure of “entity vote”. That is to say that all decisions in the House are adopted by the majority vote of those present and voting, although members shall make their best efforts to see that the majority include at least one-third of the votes of the members from the territory of each entity. If those efforts fail, decisions shall be taken by the majority of those present and voting, provided that the dissenting votes do not include two-thirds, or more, of the members elected from either entity.1 As for the election of the judges to the Constitutional Court,2 the Constitution requires entity representation, although the current practice shows that national judges were elected according to the principle of equal ethnic representation. 5. VETO POWER AND AUTONOMY The autonomy of ethnic groups on internal issues can be viewed through both a territorial and non-territorial lens. After the war, in BiH we can note the existence of territorial autonomy through the establishment and “transfer” of competencies on internal issues of ethnic group down to entity level, and in Federation of BiH to Cantons. Of special significance is the veto right that constitutes the mechanism of protecting the interests of ethnic groups in BiH. The veto right may be exercised directly, through the request for the protection of vital national interest of the constituent peoples, and covertly through the relevant legislative procedure in the House of Peoples of the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH.3 BIH Constitution Article IV/2 d). BiH Constitutional Court is comprised of nine judges from whom six are national judges; four are selected in FBiH, and two in RS. 3 Article IV/3. of the BiH Constitution. 1 2 131 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 The mechanism for the protection of vital national interest is intended to ensure that no decision is taken contrary to the interests of one of the constituent peoples. The Constitution of BiH provides that a proposed decision may be declared detrimental to the vital interests of the Bosniak, Croat, or Serb people by the majority of votes, as appropriate, of the Bosniak, Croat, or Serb delegates, but it does not give a definition of the vital national interest. As there is no set list of issues on which vital national interest can be invoked, it is possible that each ethnic group arbitrarily assesses what can affect its national interest, because the Constitutional Court of BiH examines “the procedural regularity of a particular case” and eventually decides on meritum.1 Such a system of invoking the veto right, as a protective mechanism, allows indirect achievement of a certain degree of autonomy of each ethnic group.2 The protection of the national interest can also be achieved indirectly as part of the legislative process in the House of Peoples of BiH. More specifically, three delegates from one ethnic group can, without justification, block the decision-making process by voting against a proposed act, thus preventing its adoption, which is often used in place of the mechanism for the protection of the vital national interest.3 Although the possibility of invoking the veto entails the danger of blocking the system, and mechanisms do not always function in accordance with its purpose,4 which regularly happens in BiH, Lijphart believes that democracy in a plural society, after initial slowness and difficulties, will in time prevail if ethnic group leaders reduce the right of veto to a necessary minimum.5 The High Representative of the international community in BiH has the power to take the necessary measures against the persons holding public office, including the right to remove them and ban their political engagements, pronouncing and changing laws, suspending the validity of certain provisions or laws, thus ensuring the implementation of the Dayton Agreement and smoothing the functioning of institutions.6 These powers, on the one hand, have advantages because they are a mechanism for de-blocking the system (a sort of “veto of a veto”), but on the other hand, negatively affect the process of democratisation of the state and society. The leaders of ethnic groups are aware of the powers and possibilities of the High Representative’s intervention, and often and unnecessarily radicalise political views and relations between individual ethnic groups, thus departing from Lijphart’s principle. 1 Article 2 At the IV/3.e) and f) of the BiH Constitution. Entity level government, there are additional mechanisms of protecting national interests, while the autonomy of ethnic groups in FBiH is achieved through division of competences between Federation and cantons. 3 The study “The Decision-making Process in the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina” (Representation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, Sarajevo, 2009, pp. 88-90 and p. 93) also pointed out the problem of the entity voting. Specifically, out of 260 rejected proposals and draft laws in the period from 1997 to 2007, 156 were not adopted, because they did not receive the necessary support of the representatives or delegates from one of the entities. On the other hand, in the observed period, the institute of protection of national interest was used only four rimes. 4 See also the Venice Commission Opinion on the Constitutional situation in BiH and the powers of the High Representative number CDL-AD (2005) 004 at http://www.venice.coe.int/docs/2005/CDL-AD(2005)004-bos. 5 Arend LIJPHART, Demokracija…cit., p. 57. 6 Although the powers of the High Representative only relate to DPA Annex X the provision of the same Agreement gave the High Representative the power for monitoring, coordinating and enhancing the implementation of the civil aspect of the peace settlement thus resulting in expanding the mentioned powers to all civil aspects in other Annexes. See more Steiner – Ademovic BiH Constitution Commentary (Sarajevo, 2010), 726. 132 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 6. CONCLUSION The theoretical concept of consociational democracy advocates the establishment of a grand coalition in which party leaders, of all ethnic groups, participate and which, through negotiation processes and agreement on mutual stances, make decisions on basic national issues and guide the social development. In this way, in theory, consociational democracy would “overcome itself” and a stable democratic society would be formed. Although BiH has been established as a consociational democracy, in practice the problem of building a self-sustainable and functional state limits itself to an insufficient consensus of ethnic groups as to whether they want to live in a single state. Therefore, “consent to peace” constitutes a minimum consensus on which BosniaHerzegovinian (post) conflict society is based, thus disabling the possibility of creating a long-term stable state system. Although in theory the homogeneity of ethnic groups in a particular area can be considered as an advantage, because it enables the establishment of federalism as an element of the consociational democracy, the Bosnia-Herzegovinian practice shows just the opposite. The ethnic territorialisation in BiH is not natural, but it is the result of war and ethnic cleansing (as such confirmed by the Peace Agreement), which as a consequence cannot lead to the creation of a successful state, since it establishes selfsufficient ethnically homogenous societies. Belonging to a particular ethnic group becomes the basis of political organisation, and in the Bosnia-Herzegovinian consociational democracy political competitiveness does not express itself between ethnic groups, but within a particular ethnic group, while the decision-making process is shifted to a close circle of political elites, primarily in the circle of ethnic group leaders. The elections in BiH are reduced to the selection of leaders of ethnic groups who are considered to be legitimised for decision-making, and the constitutional and electoral system with its solutions contributes to maintaining the state of ethnic and political divisions. In this way the decision-making process becomes alienated from most citizens, i.e. members of ethnic groups, while constitutionally defined decision-making institutions are bypassed and abused. The complexity of the situation in BiH does not allow much space to argue that consociational democracy, in this particular moment, would “overcome itself”, i.e. that the practical implementation of theoretical principles would yield the expected results. Thus, the consociational democracy in BiH is maintained by preserving peace as its maximum range, while overcoming these problems potentially could be found in fulfilling the conditions for the accession to the European Union which could relativize ethnic divisions and create a new basis for reaching the minimum consensus. Bibliography BELLONI, Roberto, “Peace Building and Consociational Electoral Engineering in Bosnia and Herzegovina”, International Peacekeeping, Vol. 11, No. 2, Routledge, London, 2006. 133 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 COX, Marcus, State Building and post conflict reconstruction: Lessons from Bosnia, CASIN, Geneva, 2001. CUNNINGHAM, Frank, Teorije demokratije – kritički uvod (Theories of Democracy – A Critical Introduction), Filip Višnjić, Beograd, 2003. KASAPOVIĆ, Mirjana, Bosna i Hercegovina podijeljeno društvo i nestabilna država (Bosnia and Herzegovina Divided Society and Unstable State), Politička kultura, Zagreb, 2005. LIJPHART, Arend, Demokracija u pluralnim društvima (Democracy in Plural Societies), Školska knjiga, Zagreb, 1992. STEINER, Christian, Nedim ADEMOVIĆ, “BiH Constitution Commentary”, in Representation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, Sarajevo, 2010. ŠARČEVIĆ, Edin, Ustav iz nužde (The Emergency Constitution), Rabic, Sarajevo, 2010. O’LEARY, Brendan, “Debating Consociational Politics”, in Sid NOEL (ed.), From Power Sharing to Democracy, McGill – Queen's University Press, Quebec, 2005. PEJANOVIĆ, Mirko, “The Genesis of Political Pluralism Development in BiH”, in Zoran LOTIVAC (ed.), Political Parties and Voters in the States of the Former Yugoslavia, Beograd, 2006. EHRKE, Michael, Social Democratic Parties in Central and Southeast Europe-Political Movements or Agencies for Government Management?, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Beograd, 2010. Database on-line. Available at: http://www.fes.rs/pa/socijaldempartijejie.pdf. SCHARPF, Fritz, Problem-solving Effectiveness and Democratic Accountability in the European Union, Max Institute for the Study of Societies, 2003. Database on-line. Available at: http://www.mpifg.de. Venice Commission Opinion on the Constitutional Situation in BiH and the Powers of the High Representative Number CDL-AD (2005) 004. Database on-line. Available at: http://www.venice.coe.int/docs/2005/CDL-AD(2005)004-bos. 134 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 Democratization and Development in the Arab Countries of the Mediterranean Area Gustavo GOZZI University of Bologna Abstract: The article is divided into four parts. In the first part (chapters 1&2), I shall analyse the Europeanization process affecting the countries along the Mediterranean’s “southern shore” and the transformation of the models on which basis Euro-Mediterranean relations are functioning. I shall then (chapter 3) take up the difficult relation between Islam and democracy and (chapters 4 and 5) that between democracy and development. Finally (chapters 6-10), I shall examine, from a historical perspective, the European difficulties experienced in giving life to democratisation processes along the Mediterranean’s “southern shore,” and I shall also explore possible ways toward democracy in the Arab world in the wake of Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution. Keywords: democratization, development, Mediterranean area, Arab Spring, Euro-Mediterranean relationships. 1. BEYOND BARCELONA The important Barcelona Process has brought to light some clear limitations, among which (i) the fact that decisions made in Europe should be binding on all of the signatories of the Process; 1 (ii) the lack of involvement on the part of Arab societies, even though this was among the main objectives set out in the Barcelona Declaration; (iii) the problem of a political governance capable of satisfying the criteria established in 1995 (rule of law, human rights, democracy); and (iv) a limited movement of people and goods, especially in agriculture. But there is also another reason why the Barcelona Process is not expected to achieve much: it lies in the difficulty involved in forging and sustaining a common security policy, due to the failed peace process in the Middle East. It even proved futile to attempt a definition of terrorism that European and Muslim countries could agree on, given the different evaluations from which they each proceed. The 2003 European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) marked a turning point in the relations between the European Union and North Africa. As one can gather from the words of Javier Solana, the EU High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, one of the fundamental objectives of the Khadija MOHSE-FINAN, “The Union for the Mediterranean: The Difficulty of ‘Managing Proximity’”, in IEMed Mediterranean Yearbook, 2009, p. 96. 1 135 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 new European policy was that of stability: “If these regions are unstable, Europe will not be able to live in security”. 1 The ENP has put the relations between the EU and North African countries on a different footing from what they had been under the Barcelona Process, for these relations have been fashioned on the basis of individual action plans jointly developed between Europe and the country in question. The plans establish priorities among the reforms that Europe will financially support. “The most novel aspect of the ENP is the offer of a ‘stake in the Internal Market’ and the participation in EU programs.” A stake in the internal market “will mean assistance in adapting to the complex market regulations of the EU.” 2 The first action plans got underway in December 2004 and were primarily concerned with the countries traditionally close to the EU, such as Morocco and Tunisia. The problem of adapting to the EU’s market regulations is not just an economic problem, however, for it carries weighty political implications and leads to controversial outcomes. From an economic standpoint, for example, integration into the European market means that business firms will no longer be able to rely on government funding, and that in turn carries the risk of lost jobs. From a political standpoint, adaptation entails a deep asymmetry in the relations between the EU and North African countries, in that “the main supervisory bodies and the dispute-settlement institutions such as the European Court of Justice are all EU institutions. Countries outside the EU have to adapt”. 3 2. THE EUROPEANIZATION PROCESS IN NORTH AFRICAN COUNTRIES The process of adaptation to European regulations has been particularly accentuated in Morocco through programs designed to privatise and liberalise trade in agricultural products and to work toward cooperation in foreign policy. Adaptation processes have been initiated in Tunisia as well, in monetary policy, tariff alignment, and consumer protection, among other areas. In conclusion, what can be observed is a growing process toward the Europeanization of North Africa, through greater cooperation, as well as through the adoption of European rules and regulations. 4 But how should this Europeanization process be understood? Certainly, it cannot transform itself into a sort of homologizing. Indeed, not much headway has been made as concerns human rights and political liberties. In short, despite the adaptation processes underway in economic policy, human rights and political liberties are still severely restricted by authoritarian 1 Quoted in Ricardo GOMEZ, Negotiating the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, Ashgate, Hampshire, England- Burlington, 2003, p. 1. 2 Wolfgang ZANK, “The Gradual Europeanization of North Africa: From ‘Arab Socialism’ to a ‘Stake in the EU’s Internal Market’”, in Idem (ed.), Clash or Cooperation of Civilisations? Overlapping Integration and Identities, Ashgate, Farnham, England-Burlington, 2009, p. 137. 3 Ibidem, p.138. 4 Ibidem, p.141. 136 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 governments, and as we shall see, this political condition has always undercut the process of economic development. However, if the transition toward democracy in North African countries moves forward, starting from Tunisia and Egypt, this is surely bound to create the new political conditions needed for economic development. These transformations depend as well on the complex dialectic unfolding in the societies of the Arab world, where numerous Islamic movements resist Europeanization processes, and this has led many Arab regimes to introduce limitations designed to curb democratic forms of government, to this end citing, by way of an instrumental justification, the fight against terrorism and Islamism. To be sure, the EU policy has contributed to the unfolding of this dialectic in the Arab countries – that is the process of Europeanization, the Islamist reaction, and the consequent reinforcement of autocratic Arab regimes. But the recent revolutionary uprisings and transformations in the Arab countries will certainly introduce a new political dialectic whose outcomes cannot yet be predicted. Even so, it is incumbent upon us to reflect on the difficulties that have so far held back the attempt to build democratic forms of government in the Arab countries. 3. DEMOCRACY AND ISLAM IN THE MEDITERRANEAN AREA It is fair to say that the problem of the countries along the Mediterranean’s southern shore is not one of resources but rather, and especially, one of forms of government. Indeed, the absence of the rule of law makes it impossible to keep the ruling elites in check and remedy the corruption. The recent uprisings in the Arab world are to be understood in the first instance as an outcry against the corruption of their regimes. And, compounding the problem, an inadequate legal system makes the business community reluctant to invest in these countries without a legal framework capable of ensuring regular economic transactions. This lack of investment only aggravates the unemployment problem, which in turn feeds into the larger problem, and so on. This entire situation is also exacerbated by a mutual lack of trust between the two sides of the Mediterranean: European policy comes across on the other side as an instrument designed to bolster Europe’s own economy, all the while keeping migratory processes and terrorism in check; and the Europeans, for their part, believe that the countries along the southern shore turn to the EU to advance the interests of the ruling elites. The whole of these problems, in fine, can be framed by bringing out the connection they bear to a couple of fundamental questions. We begin by pointing out that the Barcelona Process was aimed at achieving forms of democracy and at guaranteeing basic rights in the countries along the Mediterranean’s southern shore. Indeed, the underlying tenet was that economic growth could only be achieved in a democratic context, for otherwise the available resources would not have contributed to reducing the poverty and 137 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 the economic inequalities. Hence, the two fundamental questions are: Is economic development possible in a nondemocratic environment? And secondly, are there forms of democracy, other than those in the West that can support development or are otherwise compatible with it? Let us go back now to the problem of democracy in Muslim Arab countries, so as to then take up the problem of the forms of government in Arab societies and the way this relates to the objective of economic development. The basic problem that Muslim societies are facing lies in their being home to two communities at once: one of believers and one of citizens. 1 This means that no government in the Muslim Arab world can be legitimised without establishing a religious foundation. In the Western tradition, by contrast, democracy can take root only by laying its foundation on the secular values encapsulated in the basic rights and freedoms: freedom of thought, of association, of assembly, and so on. Making this the cornerstone of democracy means to recognise minorities as having equal rights and dignity with the majority. And this ultimately amounts to recognising relativism as the underlying philosophy of democracy 2 – clearly a conception that cannot be reconciled with the current forms of government in Arab countries. Before the uprisings and revolutions in North African countries the prevailing form of government in Muslim Arab societies has been described by some as a “liberalised autocracy” 3 or “partial autocracy”, referring to those political systems that control the forms of political participation and prevent the formation of authentic political societies, marked by a free political dialectic among parties and associations. Some liberalised autocracies, such as Morocco and Jordan, ground their legitimation in a direct line of descent on the Prophet. Others – as Egypt had done until the recent revolution – ground their legitimation on their defence of Islamic values. 4 Those who govern Morocco, Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon have not attempted to impose a single vision of the political community, but have instead interposed some distance between the state and society, thereby enabling the formation of plural competing political orientations. 5 The ruling elites thus act in two roles at once: as arbiters within the political system they hold on to power by playing one group off against the other, and as religious exponents they exploit their ties to Islamic institutions to curb the influence of secularist political forces. 6 In this way, however, these governments have wound up enabling the formation of counterhegemonic Islamist movements. The electoral successes achieved by Islamism are unequivocal: the 1 See Yadh Ben ACHOUR, La tentazione democratica: Politica, religione e diritto nel mondo arabo, Ombre Corte, Verona, 2010. See esp. chap. 11, “La democrazia e il costituzionalismo nel Maghreb”. 2 As Ben ACHOUR remarks, only with “the end of absolutes” democracy can begin. Ibidem, p. 202 (my translation). 3 See Daniel BRUMBERG, “The Trap of Liberalized Autocracy”, Journal of Democracy, Vol. 13, No.4, 2002, pp. 56-68. 4 Ibidem,p. 62. 5 In Brumberg’s own words, “they have put a certain symbolic distance between the State and society in ways that leave room for competitive or dissonant politics” (ibidem, p. 61). 6 Ibidem, p. 62. 138 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 Muslim Brotherhood in the 1980s, the Islamic Salvation Front in Algeria in 1991, the Justice and Development Party in Morocco in 2002, Hamas in 2006. 1 But the lack of democracy does not just depend on the divided reality of Arab societies. For there is the further complicating factor that Europe and the United States tend to favour those groups that invoke secularist values. Or, stated otherwise, it does not matter that an Islamist movement should oppose autocratic regimes: Europe and the United States will sideline it even so, for they both dismiss the possibility that something like an Islamic democracy can be achieved. 2 Western donors in turn tend to favour those groups and sectors that espouse Western values, even if it is only a limited hold that these values have on society. This has happened in Morocco and Tunisia. This situation enables Islamist movements to show that these groups with links to the West lack autonomy, with the result that authoritarian regimes stand to gain even more strength by reason of these fault lines. The Western countries do not seem capable of finding a solution to the growth of Islamism, even when dealing with nonviolent movements: they generally tend to instead favour liberal secularist groups that frequently, when faced with the threat of Islamism, support the current autocratic regimes. The European Union has so far not been able to construct a dialogue with political Islam, this despite the example of Turkey, showing that Islam and democracy are, after all, compatible. It is a grave responsibility that the United States and the European countries bear, for they have always lent their support to autocratic Arab regimes, like that of Ben Ali in Tunisia and Mubarak in Egypt, considering them as bulwarks against radical Islamism, but thereby forsaking the defence of democracy and human rights. This support of Arab autocracies remained in place until the very final days of the Ben Ali government 3, just as it was kept up until the end of Mubarak’s regime through an unreceptive attitude to popular movements. These political orientations of the United States and the European countries show how their support of democracy and human rights is entirely nominal and ideological and easily liable to be sacrificed to the interests of realpolitik. 4. ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND DEMOCRACY Before the spreading of the deep social and political transformations in North African countries, the complex dynamics of social reality in the Arab world has wound up consolidating the stability of autocratic forms of government and undermining the possibility of effecting democratic changes in the region. With this deeper awareness of the problem, we can go back and Ibidem, p. 36. Ibidem,p. 38. See Hicham Ben Abdallah El ALAOUI, “Tunisie, les éclaireurs”, Le Monde diplomatique, February 2011, p. 11. The author underscores how France remained loyal until the very end Ben Ali’s dictatorship. The Western powers’ support of dictatorships, however, has always been perceived in the Arab world as another way to perpetuate colonisation and imperialism. 1 2 3 139 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 reflect on the prospects of economic development in the absence of democratic forms of government. It has often been claimed, in tackling the relation between economic development and democracy, that democracy cannot take root without first satisfying the necessary condition of economic reform, when in reality a closer analysis of Arab societies suggests just the opposite conclusion, namely, that economic development cannot be achieved without first satisfying the basic premise of democratization. This is because authoritarianism fosters clientelistic behaviours and networks of corruption, with the result that any liberalization process in such a context is bound to remain imperfect and incomplete. 1 Liberalization – its purpose is essentially that of setting up a system of autonomous economic actors competing against one another in an open marketplace – is something the ruling elites work to effectively choke off by reason of their interest in preventing new elites from emerging who might challenge them politically. 2 Furthermore, autocratic governments oppose any legal innovation, and the private sector engages in parasitic relations with the public sector, enabling the state to fully maintain its autonomy and power. So, even if the economic indicators can be improved, the gains certainly have not been shared among the population. 3 Finally, it will be conceded that foreign investors view the presence of nondemocratic governments as making for an unreliable environment, and that for this reason there is little direct investment that flows into these countries (only 5% of European investment is devoted to the Mediterranean’s southern shore, and only 1.5% goes into the emerging countries). 5. IMMIGRATION, POLICIES DEVELOPMENT, AND EUROPEAN Much more significant in this context are the remittances sent back by immigrant workers in the EU: these account for two to three times the amount of foreign direct investment. A sizable part of Morocco’s and Tunisia’s GDP is owed to remittances, and 85% to 90% of these come from the EU. 4 It is thus a close connection that migration bears to the reality of the countries of origin: this is owed to economic relations that sustain what have been called “bonds of solidarity” – financial tools “far superior to the aid provided by international organizations and to foreign private investment, enabling communities to survive in the most disparate places across the globe, especially in the Mediterranean”. 5 These relationships and connections engender new economicG. Martín MUÑOZ, “Democracy and the Arab World: The ‘Islamist dilemma’’’, in Amr ELSHOBAKI, G. Martín MUÑOZ, Why Europe Must Engage with Political Islam, 10 Papers for Barcelona 2010, n. 5, Paris, EU Institute for Security Studies – Barcelona, European Institute of the Mediterranean, February 2010, p. 27. 2 Ibidem. 3 Ibidem. 4 Andrea GALLINA, “From Security to Development: Migration Contribution to EuroMediterranean Cooperation”, in Mediterranean Journal of Human Rights, 11, 2007, n. 2, p. 303. 5 Bruno AMOROSO, “Politica di vicinato o progetto comune?”, in F. CASSANO, D. ZOLO (a 1 140 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 development initiatives and forms of cooperation that in turn give rise to investments in infrastructure (rural electrification, roads, water) and to projects started by local cooperatives, as we have examples of across the Maghreb. These bonds of solidarity ought to have formed part of the codevelopment objective set out in the 1995 Barcelona Declaration, that of achieving “greater cooperation among different areas by integrating their diversities, but in order to enhance and strengthen such diversities rather than to level them”. 1 Instead, when it came time to take stock of the Barcelona Declaration ten years on, in 2005, the co-development process could be observed to have been reduced to the objective of creating a free-trade area, and hence to a plan by which to advance the interests of the great European economic powers, on the basis of free-market policies and within the framework of the United States’ military hegemony. What prevented the co-development process from coming to fruition were in large part the protectionist measures enacted in Europe (by subsidising European farmers, for example, or setting quotas on imports). 6. THE EUROPEAN UNION, HUMAN RIGHTS, AND DEMOCRACY The 1995 Barcelona Declaration was built on the premise that essential to the objective of creating an area of peace and stability in the Mediterranean would be the contribution of policies supporting human rights and democracy. This was a highly innovative conception, for it reframed the developmentcooperation project by specifically tying development to the effort to respect human rights and consolidate democracy. The declaration thus emphatically stated how important a role human rights and democracy would play in striving to ensure peace and stability. Despite these enunciations, however, what came out of the Barcelona review conference of 27–28 November 2005 was a document in whose final draft Barcelona’s human-rights proclamations were found to have had no more than a declaratory function. 2 It must be observed in this regard that the tools the European Union uses to promote democratization processes and protect human rights show themselves to be entirely inadequate in the face of the radical socio-political transformations affecting North African countries. Figuring as an “essential element” in the Euro-Mediterranean accords was the provision that relations among the parties were contingent on their respect for human rights and the guarantee of democratic principles. 3 This formed the basis of the conditionality clause, which applies in the event of any cura di), L’alternativa mediterranea, Feltrinelli, Milano, 2007, p. 511 (my translation). Ibidem, p. 504 (my translation). “Néanmoins, au niveau régional, les mentions des droits de l’Homme conservent un caractère purement déclaratif” (Even so, at the regional level, the human-rights declarations are purely declarative). Cf. Silvia ANGIOI, Il principio di condizionalità e la politica mediterranea dell’Unione Europea, Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, Napoli, 2006, p. 344. 3 See Silvia ANGIOI, Il principio di condizionalità…cit., p. 354. 1 2 141 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 human-rights or minority-rights violations, “but no sanctions were provided for such violations, much less was the suspension clause made effective.” 1 The reason for such laxness is that the EU did not in such cases intend to void the accords en bloc: by and large, the idea was rather to suspend only some of their provisions, especially those relative to the disbursement of European funds. Furthermore, the 1995 Barcelona Declaration set out the principle requiring respect for the cultural and historic specificities characterizing each partner country. But recognizing such specificities where Arab countries are concerned translates to legitimizing some manifestly authoritarian forms of government. In this way, the Mediterranean’s two shores remained separated by distant positions, and democracy appeared impracticable in a milieu where the dominant elites considered it as posing a threat to their power. So only two other paths remain open as viable alternatives: on the one hand, (1) there is the manifold process of integration into the European societies (so-called Euro-Islam), and this can become a model of democracy through which Europe can establish a dialogue with the Arab countries and influence the democratic transformations in those countries; and, on the other hand, (2) there is the endogenous transition that Arab countries are making toward possible forms of proper democracy. As far as the first point is concerned, i.e. the problem of forging a new democratic model on which basis the European societies might be able to integrate the peculiarities of the Islamic world, it is of utmost importance that we move beyond the notion of “exporting” our current democratic model, for that would amount to no more than a modern version of the colonial project (neo-colonialism). Our relation with the Arab countries should instead proceed from a deep transformation of our Western societies, a transformation effected by bringing integration policies to a successful completion. Indeed, I believe it to be essential to firm up the close connection that should exist between development-cooperation policy and integration policies grounded in the diversity-recognition principle. A development-cooperation policy can succeed only in a society capable of guaranteeing an integration founded on a respect for differences. We should therefore create a new multicultural space capable of protecting the different religions and cultural traditions, 2 all the while fostering their intersection and cooperation. The primary way to achieve this result, I submit, is to favour a deeper, closer social dialogue among the members of the civil societies. Indeed, it is a model of decentralized cooperation that the Barcelona Declaration envisioned as the foundation on which to promote interaction among the civil societies in the Mediterranean, a model on which initiatives and responsibilities would be transferred to local institutions, NGOs, universities, trade unions, and enterprises as actors carrying out functions that complement a range of governmental activities. 3 Ibidem, p. 355 (my translation). Stefania PANEBIANCO, The Euro-Mediterranean Partnership in Perspective: The Political and Institutional Context, introduction to A New Euro-Mediterranean Cultural Identity (ed. by Stefania PANEBIANO), Frank Cass Publishers, London, 2003, p. 17. 3 See in this regard Julia REINHART, “Civil Society Co-operation in the EMP: From 1 2 142 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 These prospects of cooperation translate into the potential of charting new paths along which different civilizations and their multiple cultures can find common ground and engage one another–this while taking into account all such transformations as may originate from within the Arab societies themselves. 7. STATE SECURITY AND HUMAN SECURITY AS A NEW PROSPECT OF COOPERATION The Arab Human Development Report (AHDR) of 2004 introduced a definition of authoritarian governance among Arab countries as a term designating those forms of government where the balance of power is skewed toward the executive, in such a way as to effectively undermine or extinguish the separation of powers, thereby depriving citizens of their freedoms and protections. In reply to the question as to what the prospects of reform might be among Arab regimes, the 2004 AHDR found that significant progress could be made toward cooperation by bringing outside forces to bear on these regimes, but only so long as the following principles were observed: (1) respect for the liberty of others, and in particular respect for the international law of human rights, including a people’s right of self-determination; (2)“absolute respect for the tenet that Arabs should find their own way to freedom and good governance through innovation by Arab social forces, without pressure to adopt ready-made models, as the firm guarantee of a successful and sustainable historic transformation” 1; (3) the introduction of an independent judiciary; and (4) the elimination of the state of emergency. The Arab Human Development Report of 2009, made public in the summer of that year, enters into the problem of reforming Arab regimes in view of human security. Human security is the necessary premise of human development, which in turn constitutes the necessary condition of economic development. The 2009 AHDR defines human security as the “liberation of human beings from those intense, extensive, prolonged, and comprehensive threats to which their lives and freedoms are vulnerable.” 2 This definition lays emphasis on “environmental resources and the state’s role in guaranteeing or undermining human security, as well as its role with respect to the insecurity of vulnerable groups, poverty [...], and general insecurity tied to employment and to foreign military interventions.” 3 This vision, centred on the concept of Declarations to Practice”, EuroMeSCo Papers, EuroMeSCo, n. 15, Lisbon, 2002, http://www.euromesco.net/media/eur_paper15.pdf. 1 UNDP Regional Bureau for Arab States, Arab Human Development Report 2004: Towards Freedom in the Arab World, United Nations Publications, New York, 2005, p. 20. 2 H. CLARK, administrator’s foreword to the Arab Human Development Report 2009: Challenges to Human Security in the Arab Countries, by the UNDP Regional Bureau for Arab States, United Nations Publications, New York, 2009, p. III. 3 Abdallah SAAF, “La sécurité humaine comme nouvelle perspective de cooperation”, in Roberto ALIBONI, Abdallah SAAF, Human Security: A New Perspective for Euro-Mediterranean Cooperation, 10 Papers for Barcelona, n. 3, Paris, EU Institute for Security Studies - Barcelona, European Institute of the Mediterranean, February 2010, p. 31 (my translation). Original text: “ressources environnementales, la performance de l’État en termes de garantie ou d’atteinte à la 143 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 human security, represents a turning point of incalculable significance, since in many cases the state seems more a threat to human security than its main guarantor. 1 The 2009 AHDR is doubtful about government-sponsored reform initiatives. By contrast, the report is very clear in singling out the actors thought to be capable of effecting tangible democratic change in Arab societies, 2 underscoring how the Arab world is home to a wealth of civil and cooperative associations: human-rights leagues, NGOs, and other civil-society institutions. 3 Accordingly, the 2009 AHDR clearly singles out the path to be followed in civil society: “Reform from within remains its first and best hope for meaningful security in Arab countries, starting with the essential rights of the people”. 4 There are four societal groups the 2009 AHDR identifies as forces from which meaningful democratic reforms in Arab countries could originate and gain momentum: (i) political-opposition groups, especially where Islamic movements have a central role; (ii) civil-society organizations; (iii) business people; and (iv) citizens. Especially active, however, are the social movements in numerous Arab states, where they have asserted their political identity, and where they can start up democratic development through several initiatives, such as staking out a position on the basic freedoms, putting out reports monitoring the progress of human rights in each country, and appealing to the law and the courts when the opportunity arises to put an end to human-rights violations. The 2009 AHDR mentions, by way of example, the strategies enacted in Egypt by the Kifaya movement, which has persuaded citizens to stage mass protests to press the government to meet its requests. The revolutionary movement that has swept through Egypt supports this thesis, for it found in the strength of Egyptian civil society itself the source on which to draw for its own initiatives. According to the 2009 AHDR, the human-security approach offers a promising opportunity for states in the Euro-Mediterranean area to cooperate. In fact, the approach was set out with a view to working it into the different phases of the economic, social, and cultural projects in this area. 5 sécurité humaine, l’insécurité propre aux groupes vulnérables, la pauvreté [...] l’insécurité généralisée liée à l’occupation et aux interventions militaires étrangères.” 1 Ibidem, p. 33. 2 The 2009 AHDR uses the concept of civil society, even though, as we know, this concept originates in the Western philosophical tradition, where it designates a “system of needs” understood from an individualistic perspective. It is thus only in an improper sense that this concept can be applied to Arab societies, whose underlying conception is instead more communitarian. 3 There are more than 130,000 organizations in the civil society of Arab countries. Their concentration tends to be in certain countries (18,000 in Egypt, 25,000 in Algeria, 7,000 in Tunisia, 4,600 in Lebanon, 1,500 in Jordan), while other countries, as was noted earlier, limit their presence to negligible levels (Arab Human Development Report 2004, p. 133). 4 Arab Human Development Report 2009, p. 76. 5 Abdallah SAAF, La sécurité humaine comme nouvelle perspective de cooperation…cit., p. 31. 144 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 8. UPRISINGS AND REVOLUTIONS IN THE ARAB WORLD The recent developments in the Arab world are the outcome of a strong reaction to unbearable living conditions. The Tunisian revolt swept across the civil society, where it was spearheaded by college and high-school graduates that saw no future ahead of them. The social realities, well known and widely analysed, 1 were such as to make this popular uprising virtually inevitable: conspiring to make it so was the strong demographic growth in combination with the widespread joblessness and the curbs on the movement of people emigrating to Europe in search of opportunities. And this bears out the consideration previously made, namely, that any transformation in the Arab world can only originate from within: from its own people and society. The Tunisian uprising has changed into a revolution, which can give life to a new form of government based on broad social participation – to a form of democracy proper to the Arab world. A key force in this revolutionary process has been the labour unions, for the part they have played in organizing spontaneous forms of protest and helping such protests gain ground. Equally important has been the role of the NGOs, which distributed documents and urged international organizations to take a clear stand against the regime. The revolution among the civil society took root by way of a growing synergy among the people, the labour unions, and the NGOs, while the role played by the opposition – legal and illegal alike – was entirely marginal. 2 The Tunisian example can show the way to a deep political revolution across the entire Arab world, as the presently unfolding transformation of the Egyptian regime is showing. The Tunisians have shown that the revolutions which have taken place in Latin America and the Eastern European countries can happen in the Arab world, too. 3 The democratic model that will emerge out of these revolutions will be a specific contribution of the Arab world to the range of possible concretizations of democracy. And Europe’s role in this new landscape must be entirely reconceived. The “Union for the Mediterranean”– a project started by the French president Sarkozy in collaboration with Hosni Mubarak – reveals the utter failure of a strategy whose aim was to “realistically” support North African Arab governments without considering any question of democracy, human rights and rule of law. The time has come for the EU to rethink its entire cooperation and democratization strategy, so as to facilitate the consolidation of authentic democracies along the Mediterranean’s southern shore. See, e.g., Bichara KHADER, “L’impact de l’élargissement sur les flux migratoires sudméditerranéens”, in Le partenariat euro-méditerranéen: Le processus de Barcelone; nouvelles perspectives, sous la direction des Professeurs Filali Osman et Christian Philip, Brussels, Bruylant, 2003. The article underscores the explosive demographic growth that was happening in the countries along the Mediterranean’s southern shore, this while the job market was offering little or no opportunities. 2 Sari HANAFI, “Lessons of the Jasmine Revolution”, Aljazeera Net, 23, January 2011. 3 Sami NAÏR, “La Tunisia brucia”, El Pais, in «Internazionale», 881, 2011, p. 13. 1 145 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 9. THE POLITICAL REASONS FOR THE REVOLUTIONS IN THE ARAB WORLD The sociologist Adel Jabbar has stated that the Arab populations of North Africa have broken the three sides of a triangle that for decades has kept these populations enclosed in an area of untrammelled repression and absolute despotism: one side of this triangle consisted of the religious fundamentalism that surged without any project or clarity; another side consisted of secular, despotic, family man, and largely corrupt systems of government; the third side lay in the interference of foreign powers, which for decades have supported these authoritarian and corrupt regimes, responsible for violating their own people’s basic rights. Today, these three elements are all staggering. Even the opposition parties have been bypassed. But the uprisings have not come out of nowhere. Quite the contrary, these are peoples with a millenary history, and one of its strands is the story of the fights they have put up to free themselves from the yoke of colonial power. In the 1960s and 1970s, these Arab states managed to build at least a minimal welfare system, but this system has since been crippled: many government properties have been sold, many of them appropriated by the elite and by the clients of those who ran the regime. In regimes as repressive as these ones, there are no public spaces where a debate with wide participation might be developed. And this explains the crucial role played by means of communication such as Twitter, Facebook, text messaging, and cell phones, which have become essential tools for exchanging information. The uprisings sparked by these factors have expressed themselves in the form of nonviolent civil disobedience–a fact that contradicts the Western image of Muslim society as inevitably prone to violence. As has been rightly observed, what has been happening is bound to definitely change the Western prejudice toward the Muslim Arab world, and the familiar notion of a clash of civilizations will accordingly be shown to be at best a misconception. Furthermore, it is not on religious grounds that people have taken part in these protests, but to defend their dignity as citizens: the handwritten signs and banners held up during these protests carried words such as freedom, dignity, and democracy – all of them secular, all calling for an end to despotism. Such was the rallying call. Outside attempts at working out cosmetic solutions – on the political as well as on the economic front – will not suffice to answer the concerns of a young population (it is estimated that two-thirds of the 350 million people who live in the Arab world are younger than 35 years of age). What instead will be needed is a radical political and economic makeover. 1 What in any event is not taking shape is Arab-Muslim exceptionalism, that is, the notion that the Muslim world is extraneous to democracy. The transition processes towards a possible form of democratic government are very complex and some scholars have already announced the crisis of the “Arab 1 Adel JABBAR, “La dignità Araba”, Africanews.it, 15 February 2011. 146 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 Spring”. Nevertheless the present situation of Arab countries is troubled by contradictions that can be the occasion for the creation of a new world. The conditions are quite different in the countries where the Arab Spring has taken place. In Tunisia the elections of 23 rd October 2011 have been characterized by the affirmation of the Islamic party al-Nahda, that has obtained the 40% of votes, corresponding to 89 seats, and that now can be a fundamental actor of the transition towards democracy. The second party has been the Congress for the Republic, a laic party that has obtained 30 seats. So the electoral result confirms the complexity of the internal situation of Tunisia, that doesn’t want to give up its Islamic heritage, but that does not refuse the reformer experiences of its history. Indeed the party of al-Nahda has not shown itself in opposition to the laic heritage of Bourghiba. The leader of the party, Rashid Ghannushi, has declared the will of guaranteeing the women’s rights and of accepting the family Code that was introduced in 1956. But despite these declarations, when al-Nahda has formed the government, it has tried to Islamise the Tunisian civil society that has strongly reacted refusing the politics of the government. Quite different is the situation in Egypt. The elections of 28 th November 2011 have assigned the victory to the party of Freedom and Justice, a party associated to the Muslim Brotherhood that has obtained the 47% of votes. But while the victory of this party had been foreseen, the result gained by the Salafi political party Al-Nour, that has obtained the 28% of votes, has been a surprise. The success of Islamic parties is due to their welfare politics towards population and to the trust they enjoy in comparison with the corruption and the oppression suffered by the population under the preceding autocratic Arab regimes. But the political models of the Islamic parties are not the same. While in Tunisia al-Nahda party has proposed to follow the Turkish democratic model – although it has given it up once it has been in power –, on the contrary the Muslim Brotherhood has refused this model owing to its secularized character. The political ideas of the Muslim Brotherhood are particularly complex and articulated. The founder of the movement – Hasan al-Banna (1906-1949) – considered the Quran as the Muslim constitution, but he thought that the men could create their own political forms of organization that had to translate the fundamental principles of the Quran in the laws of the State 1. On the contrary, another important scholar of the Muslim Brotherhood, Sayyd Qutb 2 (1906-66), thought that the sovereignty belongs exclusively to God (hakimiyya), and that consequently every government has only to apply God’s laws. During Mubarak’s regime the movement of Muslim Brotherhood declared the intention of participating as a party in the Egyptian political life, and in this way a dialectic was opened between the laic foundation of law in Egypt and the shari‘a that has See Tariq RAMADAN, Aux sources du renouveau musulman, Edition Tawhid, Lyon, 2002 (trad. it., Il riformismo islamico, Città aperta, Troina 2004, p. 335). 2 On Sayyid Qutb’s thought, see Leonard BINDER, Islamic Liberalism: A Critique of Development Ideologies, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1988, 170 and ff. 1 147 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 a divine origin1. This dialectic, that could have been the beginning of a new model of democracy in Islam, has produced on the contrary an authoritarian form of government incapable of a dialogue with all the social parties of Egyptian society. But one has also to admit that against the government of president Morsi – expression of the Muslim Brotherhood – a campaign of delegitimation has been brought about, in which have taken part many exponents of the old regime on the ground of an alliance with the opposition joined together in the National Salvation Front. Now after the army has deposed president Morsi, the strong reaction of the Muslim Brotherhood could represent the beginning of spread troubles or even of a civil war, as it was the case in Algeria. The question is whether – after the removal of an elected president in a democratic way – Egypt will see once again pluralistic democratic elections 2. The path to the democracy in the Arab countries seems very difficult. Moreover there is the risk that the United States and the countries of the “northern shore” of Mediterranean try to spread their concept of democracy and rights as a form of legitimation for their hegemonic politics, as happened in Libya. On the contrary it is necessary that the EU reconsiders its EuroMediterranean politics in order to build a new relationship of trust and cooperation with the countries of the southern shore of Mediterranean. 10. THE ARAB REVOLUTIONS AND THE POSSIBLE FUTURE OF THE EURO-MEDITERRANEAN RELATIONSHIPS The Arab revolutions have determined a radical transformation of the Euro-Mediterranean relationships. Before the beginning of the “Arab spring” the states of the southern shore of Mediterranean, on the search of a legitimation by the EU, had accepted to sign trade agreements to their damage. The result had been a decrease in the export revenue together with the “absence of competitiveness of their manufactured products on European markets on the one hand, and the maintenance of barriers against agricultural products on the other” 3. Furthermore, within the system of the EuroMediterranean relationships, the Arab Mediterranean states had accepted to repress the migration flows of their own citizens and of the migrants coming from Sub-Saharan Africa. The new situation caused by the Arab uprisings has determined the consequence that neither the ENP, nor the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) can be accepted anymore because they were based on the legitimation of the Arab élite of autocratic regimes. What kind of prospects are now in front of the Arab states? As regards the future perspectives of development in the context of the 1 Massimo CAMPANINI, “La seconda ondata del riformismo islamico: i Fratelli musulmani”, in Massimo CAMPANINI, Karim MEZRAN, Arcipelago Islam. Tradizione, riforma e militanza in età contemporanea, Laterza, Roma-Bari 2007, p. 73 2 Alain GRESH, “In Egitto, la rivoluzione all’ombra dei military”, Le Monde diplomatique, Vol. XX, No. 8, August 2013, p. 7. 3 El Mouhoub MOUHOUD, “The Arab Economies in the Face of the Crisis: Assessment and Perspectives since the Tunisian Revolution”, in Med. 2012, IEMed, 2012, p. 42. 148 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 Arab world, the free trade agreement of the so called “Greater Arab Free Trade Area” (GAFTA), that has been signed at the Cairo in 1996 and now includes 17 Arab countries, has already determined important effects. Indeed since 1997 till 2007 the GAFTA has increased the intra-regional trade by 26.6% 1. But the most important transformations will regard the Euro-Mediterranean relationships. After the spreading of the uprisings in North Africa in 2011, the EU has reconsidered its relations with the Arab countries establishing new priorities for its initiatives. In particular the EU has reexamined the guidelines of ENP, above all revisiting the principle of “conditionality”. The focus of the European response to the transformations of the Arab world is represented by two documents issued in 2011 by the European Commission and the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy: A Partnership for Democracy and Shared Prosperity with the Southern Mediterranean and A new response to a changing Neighbourhood. A Review of the European Neighbourhood Policy2. The core of the review of the ENP has been a new definition of the conditionality principle, the aim of which has been specified in the concept of a “deep democracy”, that is in free elections, in the guarantee of the liberties of expression, assembly, association, the fight against the corruption, the introduction of the rule of law and so on. The means to achieve these results have been singled out in the offer of incentives in terms of assistance, trade and mobility 3. However, the principle of conditionality at the core of a new ENP clashes with some limits that can be hardly overcome. In the first place, it is grounded on an asymmetric relationship with the EU that aims at influencing the transformations of the Arab countries, and this opposes the strong defence of the sovereignty principle from the post-colonial Arab world. Moreover, in reviewing the conditionality principle, the EU must redefine the “ethical standards” of its policy after having supported the authoritarian Arab regimes. Furthermore a new system of Euro-Mediterranean relationships ought to admit the enduring “unacknowledged cultural legacy of colonialism”. 4 “Interdependence, rather than conditionality based on an asymmetry of power, and reference to universal principles, rather to standards of democracy, make it legitimate to support them abroad...And identifying common interests and concerns that reflect the demands of the people in this common Mediterranean space may be a way to establish a new dialogue with a changing Arab world”. 5 Javad ABEDINI, Nicolas PÉRIDY, “The Greater Arab Free Trade Area (GAFTA): An Estimation of Trade Effects”, Journal of Economic Integration, Vol. 23, No. 4, 2008, pp. 848-872. 2 European Commission and the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, A Partnership for Democracy and Shared Prosperity with the Southern Mediterranean, COM (2011) 200 final, Brussels: 8 March 2011; European Commission and the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, A new response to a changing Neighbourhood. A Review of the European Neighbourhood Policy, COM (2011) 303, Brussels: 25 May 2011. 3 Rosa BALFOUR, “New Paradigms for the EU-South Mediterranean: Rethinking Conditionality?”, Med. 2012, IEMed. 2012, p. 64. 4 Fred HALLIDAY (2005), “The Age of the Three Dustbins”, in Fred HALLIDAY, Political Journeys, Saqi Books, London, 2011. 5 Rosa BALFOUR, New Paradigms for the EU-South Mediterranean…cit., p. 68. 1 149 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 Finally, the present economic and political crisis of the EU and the processes of uprisings in the Arab countries – if they were completely accomplished – could allow the renegotiation of “the free trade agreement with the EU, demanding both the opening of EU agricultural markets and temporary asymmetry to the benefit of MENA (Middle East and North Africa) countries” 1. A new season could be opened for the Euro-Mediterranean relationships. But the grave troubles in Egypt and the upsetting and disorder that could ravage the whole Middle East, with their effects on the global level, render impossible all the expectations. Bibliography SAAF, Abdallah, La sécurité humaine comme nouvelle perspective de coopération, in Roberto ALIBONI, Abdallah SAAF, Human Security: A New Perspective for Euro-Mediterranean Cooperation, 10 Papers for Barcelona, n. 3, Paris, 2010, EU Institute for Security Studies – Barcelona, European Institute of the Mediterranean, February 2010. ABEDINI, Javad, Nicolas PÉRIDY, “The Greater Arab Free Trade Area (GAFTA): An Estimation of Trade Effects”, Journal of Economic Integration, Vol. 23, No. 4, 2008, pp. 848-872. BEN, Abdallah El Aloe H., “Tunisie, les éclaireurs”, Le Monde diplomatique, February 2011. BEN, Achour Y., La tentazione democratica: Politica, religione e diritto nel mondo arabo, Ombre Corte, Verona, 2010. ADEL, Jabbar, “La dignità Araba”, Africanews.it, 15 February 2011. AMOROSO, Bruno, “Politica di vicinato o progetto comune?”, in F. CASSANO, D. ZOLO (a cura di), L’alternativa mediterranea, Feltrinelli, Milano, 2007. ANGIOI, Silvia, Il principio di condizionalità e la politica mediterranea dell’Unione Europea, Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, Napoli, 2006. BALFOUR, Rosa, “New Paradigms for the EU-South Mediterranean: Rethinking Conditionality?”, Med. 2012, IEMed. 2012. BINDER, Leonard, Islamic Liberalism: A Critique of Development Ideologies, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London 1988. BRUMBERG, Daniel, “The Trap of Liberalized Autocracy”, Journal of Democracy, Vol. 13, No. 4, 2002. CAMPANINI, Massimo, “La seconda ondata del riformismo islamico: i Fratelli musulmani”, in Massimo CAMPANINI, Karim MEZRAN, Arcipelago Islam. Tradizione, riforma e militanza in età contemporanea, Laterza, Roma-Bari 2007. European Commission and the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, A Partnership for Democracy and Shared Prosperity with the Southern Mediterranean, COM (2011) 200 final, Brussels: 8 March 2011. 1 El Mouhoub MOUHOUD, The Arab Economies…cit., pp. 43-44. 150 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 European Commission and the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, A new response to a changing Neighbourhood. A Review of the European Neighbourhood Policy, COM (2011) 303, Brussels: 25 May 2011. El MOUHOUB, Mouhoud, “The Arab Economies in the Face of the Crisis: Assessment and Perspectives since the Tunisian Revolution”, Med. 2012, IEMed, 2012. GALLINA, Andrea, “From Security to Development: Migration Contribution to Euro-Mediterranean Cooperation”, in Mediterranean Journal of Human Rights 11, No. 2, 2007. GOMEZ, Ricardo, Negotiating the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, Ashgate, Hampshire, England- Burlington, 2003. GRESH, Alain, “In Egitto, la rivoluzione all’ombra dei militari”, Le Monde diplomatique, XX, n. 8, August 2013. HALLIDAY, Fred, “The Age of the Three Dustbins”, in Fred HALLIDAY, Political Journeys, Saqi Books, London 2011. HANAFI, Sari, “Lessons of the Jasmine Revolution”, Aljazeera Net, 23, January 2011. KHADER, Bichara, “L’impact de l’élargissement sur les flux migratoires sudméditerranéens”, in Filali OSMAN, Christian PHILIP (sous la dir. de), Le partenariat euro-méditerranéen: Le processus de Barcelone; nouvelles perspectives, Bruylant, Brussels, 2003. MUÑOZ, Martín G., “Democracy and the Arab World: The ‘Islamist dilemma’”, in Amr ELSHOBAKI, G. Martín MUÑOZ, Why Europe Must Engage with Political Islam, 10 Papers for Barcelona 2010, n. 5, Paris, EU Institute for Security Studies – Barcelona, European Institute of the Mediterranean, February 2010. MOHSEN-FINAN, Khadija, “The Union for the Mediterranean: The Difficulty of ‘Managing Proximity’ ”, IEMed Mediterranean Yearbook, 2009. PANEBIANCO, Stefania (ed.), A New Euro-Mediterranean Cultural Identity, Frank Cass Publishers, London, 2003. REINHART, U. Julia, “Civil Society Co-operation in the EMP: From Declarations to Practice”, EuroMeSCo Papers, EuroMeSCo, n. 15, Lisbon, 2002. SAMI, Naïr, “La Tunisia brucia”, El Pais, in «Internazionale», 881, 2011. UNDP Regional Bureau for Arab States, Arab Human Development Report 2004: Towards Freedom in the Arab World, New York, United Nations Publications, 2005. ZANK, Wolfgang (ed.), Clash or Cooperation of Civilizations? Overlapping Integration and Identities, Ashgate, Farnham, England-Burlington, 2009. 151 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 Citizenship and Demos. Is there a People of Europe? Perspectives on the Democratic Legitimacy of the European Union Roxana OLTEANU University of Bucharest Abstract: With more than 60 years of existence, the European project, deeper and wider than was initially imagined, has reached a stage of development where the tension between the state and its transfer or share of function with the supra-national European level has become acute. The debate over federalism or intergovernmentalism, over the legitimacy of the Union and its connection with the citizens, was for a long time a matter of great interest for the researchers. Yet, many questions still do not have an answer and predictions over the future of Europe remain inaccurate. Aiming to analyse the relationship between the national and the European identity, the present paper combines the theories of contractualism with those of nationalism, in order to obtain a wider and more comprehensive approach of the possibility for a people of Europe to be created and of the legitimacy of the Union in its absence. Keywords: European public sphere, contractualism, sovereignty, nationalism. 1. INTRODUCTION This paper which focuses on the existence/ non-existence of a European demos, develops its arguments starting from the theory of political regimes and the modern theories of nationalism. The analysis, qualitative and oriented on a politicojuridical axis, aims to find an answer to a few questions: is there a European demos and, if not, which are the preconditions of its emergence? How is the absence of the demos reflected in the construction of the Union? In order to develop the arguments on the dimension of the political regime of the European Union we shall refer to authors like Bernard Manin and Sergio Fabbrini, while, for the elements concerning the identity construction and nationalism, we shall cite mainly the theories of Samuel Hutchinson, Ernest Gellner and Benedict Anderson (indirect bibliographic resources). The primary support of the present paper consists of the Treaty of Lisbon, respectively the previous documents, since the draft of the Constitutional Treaty of the Union remained not ratified. As regards the apparition of a European political body, we shall also shortly refer to the contractualist theories of Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau. The paper is structured in five chapters, of which the most consistent two are dedicated to the content. We intend to propound the theoretical differentiation between citizenship and demos and we shall expound with empirical evidence the absence of the latter, underlining the fact that the presence of citizenship may act in favour of the emergence of the demos (in a top-down process, directed from the political elite to the social basis 152 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 of the Union). The research is focused on the dynamics of the process of construction of the European identity, on understanding its nature and the way it interacts with other identities of the individuals. The purpose of the research is to examine the hypothesis that the European Union had not yet managed to construct a demos of its own, in spite of the existence of the legal concept of European citizenship. An alternative hypothesis is that, even if the ‘European people’ is missing, it may be constructed by taking the necessary time and by benefiting of a favourable context, into a top-down process of evolution. 2. TOWARDS A EUROPEAN POLITICAL BODY The contemporary political society is perceived as being based on fragments of the contractualist theory, according to which the state is not regarded as an a priori organisational form, anterior to humans, as it was defined by Aristotle, or as an expression of the divine will as to a community. It is, more than ever, an institution, an artificial entity individuals agreed to construct. Based on the idea of consensus between individuals, a long series of contemporary theories have been developed, from the one illustrating the nations as ‘imagined communities’1 to the well-known Weberian definitions and taxonomies, according to which the state detains the monopoly of the physical violence2 (where the idea of monopoly of the violence is highly similar to Hobbes’ Leviathan). We shall continue by taking into consideration and emphasising certain variations encountered from one author to another regarding the main traits of contractualism. We may firstly note a differentiation in the way the natural law is understood: as a historical reality or as a theoretical model. In both cases, the natural law is the starting point for individuals in order to achieve social organisation3. We shall also distinguish between the various manners of forming the contract, the causes of signing it and the relation established between a subject and his/ her liberty, after becoming part of the contract. We use the concept of social contract in its sense of consensus through which individuals commonly transcended the natural law and agreed to compose the political body. For Hobbes, natural law is a theoretical model, not a real phase of mankind’s development in history, being an explanatory concept4, meant to justify the current existence of individuals as parts of the political body. Unlike Hobbes, Locke has the characteristic of understanding natural law as a real episode, a stage in human evolution The idea, conveyed by authors like E. Gellner, Adam Smith and Benedict Anderson, points out that a nation is formed only after having defined itself so and aspires to have its own sovereign state. In this regard, the nation and the supra-individual consciousness of its existence come before the birth of state, somehow similarly to the contractualist idea of consensus between individuals. It is not the case, of course, of a transition from the natural law to civil society, the limits of the comparison being obvious. On the other hand, there is also a second variant, according to which the nation is constructed in a top-down process, directed by the state, a perspective sharing even less common points with contractualism. 2 Max WEBER, Economy and Society. An Outline of Interpretive Sociology, University of California Press, Los Angeles, 1978, p. 54. 3 Daniel SIDOR, “De la starea naturalĖ la comunitatea politicĖ. Intre denunťare şi delegare”, Sfera Politicii, Vol. XVIII, No. 3 (145), March 2010, Fundaťia Societatea CivilĖ, Bucureşti, 2010, p. 15. 4 Thomas HOBBES, Leviathan, consulted at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3207/3207-h/3207-h.htm (8.05. 2013). 1 153 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 throughout the construction of state, the final expression of the consensus between subjects1. Rousseau accepts, in his perspective, a form of existence of the individuals before the apparition of the state. In Of the Social Contract, Or Principles of Political Right, he argues, however, that “the oldest from all societies – and the only natural one – is the family”2. We may infer that the perspective is one of a constructed state entity, founded not on the divine will, nor is it an a priori situation, before the existence of the individual, but viewed as a rational and consensual formula. For the French author, the correspondent of natural law is natural liberty, where every person has the right to try to possess anything he may want, the only limit being his physical strength, necessary to obtain and keep an object. Natural law, regarded by Rousseau as being fundamentally good, is not lost inside the social contract – the renunciation to liberty does actually not happen, as long as the entire process is only about replacing the primary freedom and the law of force with civil liberty and limitations imposed by the general consensus, and not by strength3. The contract is signed between citizens and other citizens – in this respect, those who serve in administration are, first of all, signatories of the contract just like all the other citizens. Thus, their responsibility will come from two sources: their own commitment in the contract and the accountability reported to the other members of the community, in front of which they assumed to show a full and honest exercise of the public service. We must note that Rousseau does not see the governors as a privileged body, but as persons responsible of putting into practice the duties resulted from the exercise of the contract. The transition from natural law to a political body takes place when the individuals are no longer able to preserve that natural law, in which they could acquire anything they wished for and lived mostly isolated (for instance, demographic transformations made isolation impossible, forcing the subjects to interact). From this point on, people tend to associate their forces, replacing the unsafe natural liberty with civil liberty, guaranteed by the law. By definition, civil liberty is, for Rousseau, the submission of the subject only to the law (regarded as the expression of the pact the individual consented to sign) and the ultimate goal of the contract. As for Hobbes, the main characteristic of natural law is a pervasive anarchy and the war of all against all. The reason for aggregating the political society is the fear of death and, once the contract is in force, the individual agrees to keep only his right to self-preservation. Society is horizontally constructed, throughout the consensus created between individuals, who were determined to do so by fear. Yet, the vertically axis is missing – in this regard, contractualism cuts the links between individuals and the sovereign, the accountability of the king being practically absent. We note that Locke and Rousseau try to improve the horizontal contractualist theory of Hobbes, at least as far as Locke develops the idea of accountability of those detaining the political power to the people who accepted to be governed and who can ultimately relinquish the contract4. Hence, both introduced the idea of two pacts. Firstly, it is about a horizontal pact, meant to substantiate the political body and having the aim to protect life, liberty and prosperity; on the other hand, another pact is signed between those who agreed to 1 Jeremy WALDRON, “John Locke. Social Contract Versus Political Anthropology”, in D. BOUCHER D, P. KELLY, The Social Contract from Hobbes to Rawls, Routlege, London, 1994, p. 51. 2 Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, Despre contractul social sau principiile dreptului politic, Antet, Bucureşti, 2006, p. 6. 3 Ibidem, p. 20. 4 Daniel SIDOR, “De la starea naturalĖ…cit.”, p. 19. 154 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 compose the society and the state/ the sovereign, an act who enables the latter to become the arbitrator of the disputes between individuals1. Therefore, the state has the role of passing from a selective and subjective justice to an impartial and unbiased application of the law. Unlike Hobbes, Locke does not sustain the former’s theory in favour of absolutist monarchy, being inclined rather to liberalism. The will of the sovereign is no more regarded as irrefutable, as long as he is responsible to those who signed the contract. The individuals are not an amorphous mass, especially as a result of the way they decide to delegate an important part of their rights to be administered and protected. For Locke, natural law is not similar to a generalised conflict, as it was for Hobbes. Regarding the comparison between Locke and Rousseau, the latter does not debate (just like Hobbes) on a bivalent pact, but not because the possibility of control over the sovereign would cease, as in the Hobbesian theory, but because the sovereignty is transferred to the people. Further on, Rousseau underlines the differentiation between the sovereign and the governors, specifying that the governors are those who apply the elements stipulated in the contract, yet the writ has not been signed with them. In this regard, an interesting differentiation is also made by Hobbes, who similarly distinguishes between law and the exercise of the law2. In the wake of what we have exposed until here, we shall try to extrapolate from the primary state centric dimension of these theories to the current situation of the European Union. The first particularity to be noted is the fact that, in its intention to construct its own political body, the European project does not start, as contractualist authors wrote, from a natural law. None of the elements which lay the foundation for the aggregation of contract in Hobbes’, Locke’s and Rousseau’s view – respectively, the fear of death, defending the property or the physical impossibility to remain isolated – are substantial in the case of the European Union, given that the states have already responded to all those challenges. In this regard, a separate research can be developed on the possible alternatives to justify and fuel the construction of a European political body. Some indicators may be found in the economic prosperity, preserving the peace on the continent, elements with symbolic and moral value. Somehow, those can be understood as derived from what contractualist authors explained as an engine of passing over the natural law, but the current needs are more complex, evolved and refined, and also not so stringent. But would this be enough in order to construct a new political body, somehow different from the already existing one inside the frame of states? A second issue is about the effect produced by the social contract and the manner this is understood. The idea may be developed in two directions: how the vertical social pact can be transposed to the European construction, respectively the degree of materialisation of a horizontal contract, consented by the citizens. Regarding the first problem, the vertical pact has to cope with the difficulty of accountability at the European level. The contractualist theories, as a cause of their historical context, were reported to the monarchy, thus to a well-defined, unique leadership, to whom the citizens have delegated a series of rights. In the particular case of the European Union it 1 John LOCKE, The Second Treatise of Civil Government, consulted at http://www.constitution.org /jl/2ndtreat.htm (9.05. 2013). 2 Michel SENELLART, Artele guvernării. De la conceptul de “regimen” medieval la cel de guvernare, Ed. Meridiane, Bucureşti, 1998, p. 32. 155 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 is hard to identify exactly who is responsible for administering the rights of the individuals. In the spirit of Rousseau’s theory, we can clearly distinguish who are the governors, as guarantors of the exercise of the pact, but the social contract has not essentially been signed with them. Therefore, where is the vertical dimension of the pact reflected? Is it inside the European Council? Or is it in the Commission? As to the European Council, because of the impossibility of it being sanctioned for its actions, since the accountability is rather intermediate than direct and the transparency of the decisions is questionable, as long as the debates are not public and no stenograph is available, the institution seems to fit well in Hobbes’ conception on the sovereign, which does not point out, as Locke and Rousseau do, that there should exist any responsibility for the way the contract is put into practice. Concerning the horizontal dimension of the pact, according to which the individuals freely and equally agree to be parts of the contract, things appear to be clearer. Citizens consent to take part in the political and economic project of the European Union, accepting it as an arbitrator of their conflicts and as a source and legitimate producer of law. Supposing that the citizens do not consent to such a contract, they cannot be constrained, the result being similar to the case of Norway, which rejected by referendum the country’s membership to the E.U. Even though, is this enough in order to consider that a European political body and demos do exist? In order to obtain a larger view on this subject, we shall complete the research with some arguments extracted from the theories on nationalism. 3. BETWEEN EUROPEAN CITIZENSHIP AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF A EUROPEAN DEMOS The etymology of the word “demos” comes from Greek and can be understood in two different ways: one which is closer to our point of view, meaning the community interested in an active participation in political life, expressing its opinions and interests and able to designate commonly recognised political representatives, and a second meaning, linking the word to the idea of “people”, in terms of values, history, collective memories, a general perception of the common future of the group1, etc. At the European level, the absence of demos is usually correlated with the idea of democratic deficit, regarded from two perspectives: an institutional approach (the lack of accountability of European institutions before the citizens) and a sociological point of view (the difficulty of configuring a democratic regime in the absence of demos)2. Three main currents of opinion can be found in the academic debate on this subject: firstly, certain authors argue that a European demos does not exist and this element would be necessary in order to achieve a functional “macro-democracy”; according to the second approach, a European demos does exist, but its definition and significance are quite different from those given in the past. Some of these specialists, just as Ulrike Liebert from the University of Bremen did, show that the old manner of conceiving the demos as being inseparably linked to democracy and as one of its strongest guarantees is an 1 Elda BIDAJ, Ligia BLIDARU, Zamira PODE, Lusine VOSKANYAN, Telos, Ethos, Demos and the Future of the European Union, PanEuropa, 2007, p. 2, consulted at http://paneuropa.ro/doc/ReportonDemos.pdf (08.04. 2013). 2 Ibidem, p. 3. 156 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 error, as long as the demos (political community) is wrongly identified with the ethnos (homogeneous community of values, tradition and ethnic origins). Liebert argues that a fact is constantly omitted, namely the fact that the modern theory of democracy has clearly delimitated itself from the ethnos, defining demos more and more by its legal dimension1, linked to political representation and law more than connected to a common language, religion, blood roots/ race and other issues concerning a certain homogeneity. In this regard, the current representative democracy asks for “precisely bounded citizenry, normally defined by membership to a political unit organised on a territorial basis, which then elects representatives”2, and nothing more. The third approach concerning the European demos analyses it by its moment of construction and related to the dynamics of the economy. More precisely, the question rises whether the demos and a democratic political regime can be constructed after a free economy has been established, as long as the entire process usually functions the other way around. We do not deny a certain detachment of modern democracy from its ethnic basis. Liebert’s argumentation is, from this point of view, strong and hard to dismantle. On the other hand, a question may be addressed concerning the way political communities appeared and evolved up to the point of “well-bounded citizenship” and democracy, in the absence of the shared values, tradition, common language, etc., meant to justify and facilitate their existence. The probability for a bottom-up process to exist is quite small, especially given the actual situation of the Union, with a large segment of population being irresponsive to the themes of European interest and a nascent area of Eurosceptic, revolutionary political parties, questioning the very existence of E.U. A topdown process of identity construction is more likely and it is exactly what we try to demonstrate it is producing in the European case, but without identifying the legal concept of democracy with the dimension of demos, to whom we confer a prevailing cultural meaning. Regarding the relation between the existence of demos and the free market, we may anticipate that, at least for the moment, in the particular case of the European Union it is firstly (if not totally) about the degree of ethno-cultural diversity and heterogeneity and only secondly about the type of economy and the moment the common market has appeared. Even if analysing the hypothesis that the democracy cannot be built once the free market has emerged, we still have to note the political progress of the Union during its sixty years of existence. We placed the theme of demos at the intersection of the theories on nationalism and those concerning sovereignty. This approach is due to the manner the European identity tries to be constructed, partly similar to the national identity, and, on the other hand, due to the reality that the European Union is composed of national states in the Westphalian sense of the term, states which, since the 18th and 19th centuries, became national entities. That being so, the European case is intricate, as long as a supra-national identity cannot be compatible with the national identity, nor can it with the classical idea of sovereignty. How can a European demos be built, as long as the states are not willing 1 Ulrike LIEBERT, Just Cheap Talk? Rethinking the No European Demos’ Thesis in Light of Discursive Representation Practices, Jean Monnet Centre for European Studies, University of Bremen, Bremen, 2012, p. 3, consulted at http://www.monnet-centre.uni-bremen.de/pdf/2012-1%20Liebert,%20Ulrike.pdf (28.03.2013). 2 Ibidem. 157 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 to cede the control over the areas linked to their first age?1 If a European identity finally appears, to whom should a citizen be firstly loyal – to his state or to Europe?2 What are the possibilities to formulate a European identity as long as national identities and rivalries are still powerful? In the best-case scenario, the European identity is currently at the level of the differentiation “we-other” compared to the non-European people, but unable to manage the same relation between the nations composing the Union. Robert Cooper, the former consultant of Javier Solana, was noting in 2006 that one of the problems of the European states is the fact they make individual expenditures from the defence budget, without being able to correlate at a supranational level the politics in this area. It results that the European Union is irrationally buying equipment doubling thus some already existing military capacities (many states have similar equipment, meant for the same kind of actions), but rarely interoperable3. With personnel separately trained and having to use directly in the field equipment it is not familiar to work with, the European Union will continue to face the problem of being unable to articulate an elite defence force comparable to the American one. A solution might be to buy and use in common the same types of new and efficient weapons. This measure would reduce the national expenditure for an optimal military capacity, would permit a higher degree of interoperability and the acquisition of a broader and diverse series of equipment – a large part of the military coherence Europe currently misses. Yet, the main difficulty is the fact that states are not prepared to join such a close and deep cooperation and to assume its risks. In Krasner’s terms, who developed a theory of the four types of sovereignty – legal sovereignty, interdependence sovereignty and domestic and Westphalian sovereignty – states especially tend to protect the last two4. In the theories of nationalism, the nation is a concept directly linked to modernity, not identified with the state, nor with the ethnos, but understood as a community who has the consciousness of shared values, a common future, a founding myth and narrations concerning its own existence, aspiring to control a certain territory if this has not yet been achieved. The self-identification of the individual as part of a nation is the result of a constructed identity, assimilated by culture and education5. Nobody can define himself as being a Romanian, French or German in its first years of life, but is socialised to perceive oneself so, even if one’s citizenship is established since birth. More than a constructed identity, the nation is also regarded as an imagined and collective identity6. At this moment, in the world there simultaneously exist nations which are formed before having a state construction and nations that come into being only after the state. An example for the first situation is Israel, while France makes a strong case of nation created after the centralisation of the state during the absolutist monarchy and which produced a homogeneous culture, a standardised language and common myths 1 Stephen KRASNER, “Rethinking the Sovereign State Model”, Review of International Studies (2001), 27, British International Studies Association, p. 17, consulted at: http://psfaculty.ucdavis.edu/zmaoz/krasner2001.pdf (29.03.2013). 2 John HUTCHINSON, “The Past, Present, and the Future of the Nation-State”, Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, Winter/Spring 2003, p. 10, consulted at http://journal.georgetown.edu/past-issues/4-1state-of-the-nation/ (28.03.2013). 3 Robert COOPER, The European Answer to Robert Keagan, in Transatlantic Internationale Politik, No. 2, 2003, p. 1, consulted at: http://w7.ens-lsh.fr/amrieu/IMG/pdf/Europe_answers_Kagan_2-03.pdf (08.04.2013). 4 Stephen KRASNER, “Rethinking the Sovereign State Model…cit.”, pp. 18-19. 5 Anthony SMITH, Myths and Memories of the Nation, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1999, pp. 230-231. 6 Benedict ANDERSON, Imagined Communities. Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism, Verso, London, 1991, pp. 5-7. 158 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 only afterwards. It may be useful to remember that S. Fabbrini underlined in his work that Western national states are the product of two different evolutions: the genesis of institutions able to put into practice the authority over a given territory (or the construction of the state) and the emergence of a common identity for the inhabitants of that territory (or the construction of the nation)1. Starting from those data, the European Union encompasses a few problems concerning the construction of an identity analogous to nationalism. The project of a united Europe has to cope with the already written history of human groups possessing their own rations of cohesion, myths and values. The deconstruction of those identities in order to create a new one, or at least to integrate them into a wider, more complex identity (an overlapping process) is more difficult than to start the structure from zero. Unlike the United States, which shows an illuminating example of how to aggregate a nation into a federal frame, the European Union cannot start from the same basis2. As long as large masses of people do not share the same habits, axiological systems, culture or even language, in order to create an artificial reason of cohesion, other than the simple democracy, the process might prove to be a long one and it is expected to come as a topdown evolution. The attempt to introduce an anthem of the Union and a European day,3 similar to the national ones, as well as the idea of a European citizenship and the reference to a juridical text as being a constitution gives a dimension of what the E.U. tries to build in terms of identity. Studying this tendency, S. Hutchinson, noted that in order to achieve its goals, it may be necessary to evoke a clear sense of community. As long as the E.U. does not produce collective memories, heroic images concerning its own past, narratives meant to legitimate its aims and to convince the individuals that they are part of the same community, even of a supranational community in this case, the project continues to be regarded with scepticism, lack of interest or even rejection4. Hutchinson boldly underlined that even the areas which seem to be covered by European responsibility are basically animated by national interests5. An example may be given by the European elections which took place in 2009, on their seventh edition. In spite of a 30-year long history, the ballot continued to be influenced by some structural problems: the image of second-order elections, the low participation of the citizens (excepting the countries where the vote is compulsory), the importance given to national issues as compared to the European points of interest, the use of vote as a mid-term sanction for the national government, and, finally, the lack of attention paid by mass-media to the ballot6. The Euro-barometer no. 71, released at the beginning of 2009, revealed that only 39% of the French people agreed that the European deputies are directly elected by the citizens, while the average European rate of correct answer was about 53%. The French seem to be the less informed public, a fact quite inquiring given the role of France in the 1 Sergio FABBRINI, Compound Democracies. Why the United States and Europe Are Becoming Similar, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2007, p. 21. 2 Ibidem, p. 22. 3 Draft Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe, Part IV, General and Final Provisions, Art. IV-1. The symbols of the Union, consulted at http://european-convention.eu.int/docs/treaty/cv00850.en03.pdf (10.04.2013). 4 John HUTCHINSON, “The Past, Present…cit.”, p. 10. 5 Ibidem, p. 6. 6 Pascal PERRINEAU, “Les Élections Européennes de Juin 2009 en France: Des élections de second ordre ou de reclassement?”, Revue Internationale de Politique Comparée, Vol. 16, No. 4, 2009, p. 653, consulted at http://www.cevipof.com/fichier/p_publication/603/publication_pdf_ripc_164_0653.pdf (6.04. 2013). 159 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 European construction1. Regarding the effective participation to the vote, the absenteeism reached its biggest rate in the history of European elections. The phenomenon can be interpreted both at the French and at the European level as having three possible explanations. The first one enhances a political choice, usually in terms of disappointment caused by national governments. Secondly, it is about the perception of the voters that their choice expressed during the elections is not able to make a difference. This image is quite connected with the feeling that the European Parliament does not really and accurately reflect the problems and concerns of the citizens. Finally, a great amount of people seem not to be sufficiently informed about the elections, while the campaigns do not manage to get deep enough in the society and mobilise it2. However, the democratic deficit is visible even inside the European institution which was supposed to be the most transparent and democratic one, the European Parliament, while the uninterestedness for the European issues and the primacy of the national interest (the low importance attached to the elections and the voters’ reference to their own governments) are also marked. If we take into consideration Manin’s approach on democracy, the European Union seems to be stuck between a democracy based on parties and an audience democracy3. The instance of the European elections lets us also infer the weakness of the European public sphere, meant to adjust the political agenda of the Union, to confer legitimacy, a space for debate and the sanction of the public opinion, where this might be necessary. The European issues are usually debated inside the national public sphere, as one of its components, but do not manage to form a supranational frame of public dialogue. Even if rights as the freedom of expression and the freedom of speech are guaranteed, even if the Treaty of Lisbon introduced the right of at least one million citizens to propose legislation4, etc., a European public sphere, independent and possessing all the features of a national public sphere, is still absent. This frame of dialogue, regarded as a space where the public opinion is aggregated and values and myths are shared and perpetuated, where the different actors in a society communicate to one another, has a strong contribution to circulate facts, ideas, points of view, putting them together into a succession of knowledge and axiology which serve as a basis for political actions5 and a collective identity. At the European level, the weakness of the public sphere may be simultaneously regarded as a symptom and as a cause of the absence of demos. In order to resume the arguments regarding the absence of a demos, we underline that we have mentioned up to this point the prevalence of the national elements to the detriment of the European ones, including here the scopes behind the euro-optimism of the Eastern states who joined the Union in 2004 and 2007 (the ‘mirage’ of the Occident, the fear for their own security, the idea of returning into the European family, prosperity, etc.). Secondly, we may note a lack of interest and even information of the citizens regarding European issues. Here we introduce a third Ibidem, p. 657. *** Special Euro-barometer 299. The 2009 European elections, EU, pp. 17-18, consulted at: http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_299_en.pdf (02.04.2013). 3 Bernard MANIN, The Principles of Representative Government, Cambridge University Press, 1997, pp. 193-197. 4 *** Treaty of Lisbon, Art. 8, consulted at http://bookshop.europa.eu/en/official-journal-of-the-europeanunion-c-306-17.12.2007-pbFXAC07306/?CatalogCategoryID=ARsKABstvzAAAAEj0JEY4e5L (03.04.2013). 5 Brian MCNAIR, Introducere în comunicarea politică, Polirom, Iaşi, 2007, p. 38. 1 2 160 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 argument, concerning the frailty of a supranational public sphere, which would be meant to inform and mobilise the masses. Another clue indicating the absence of the demos is the fracture existing between the politicians acting at the European level, particularly those of the European Commission, and the people. Not only do European institutions seem to be disconnected from their citizens, a fact which was obvious at the European elections, but these institutions also seem not to be interested in changing the situation. The reluctance shown by the states in ceding sovereignty in sensitive areas, such as public order and defence, massively contributes (even if apparently not directly) to an impairment in the construction of a European demos. Individuals are encouraged to primarily show loyalty to their states. Germans are first of all Germans, and only afterwards Europeans, a fact which is all the more conspicuous in crisis situations. The example is aleatory, yet the same situation defines all the other nations composing the Union. The problematic economic situation of the last years made the themes of demos and sovereignty even more pronounced than they were in the past. For instance, some questions were raised as to how the Union might be able to possess a demos, as long as it does not manage domestic sovereignty. Or, in the same key, how a democratic political regime is expected to function in the absence of the demos. After enumerating those elements, we may also note that the European identity has several other deficiencies: the lack of self-perception of individuals as being part and parcel of the same group, the fragile common axiological system, the fact that Europe is not regarded as a homeland and the non-existence of a founding myth, collective memories and common European heroes1. Ultimately, we may question even the Europeans’ trust in a common future. As for the theories regarding the construction of the nations in the 18th and 19th centuries, starting from Hroch’s and Hobsbawm’s points of view, we may note two phenomena: first of all, the masses (workers, small venders, peasants) have been the last social category engaged in the entire process of apparition and maturation of nationalism. Secondly, the two authors observed that in Europe there existed three different stages of national movements: the first one took place especially in the 19th century, being an elite-dominated phase, with a purely cultural activity – it is the moment when the group starts to individualise itself from the others and construct a primary and fragile internal cohesion on the basis of a standardised language and a common culture, only recently defined so; in the second phase, some pioneers start addressing the national idea from a political perspective, composing what Hroch named la minorité agissante; only in the last stage is the support of the masses obtained, the masses assuming a certain cultural identity and adhering to the political goals formulated by the elites, and the nation being thus finally built (given that it is not necessary for a group to possess from the very beginning its own sovereign state in order to be called a nation, being enough to aspire to obtain a territory)2. The Union appears to be at the limit between the first and the second phase mentioned by Hroch, in which a minority, a part of the elites, tries to delimitate a group from other groups and to create its first elements of identity. The literature offers only a few scenarios regarding a possible evolution of the European demos in the future. Supposing that the Union will resist to its internal 1 Lars-Erik CEDERMAN, Nationalism and Bounded Integration: What It Would Take to Construct a European Demos, European University Institute/ Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, Badia Fiesolana, 2000, p. 24, consulted at http://cadmus.eui.eu/bitstream/handle/1814/1674/00_34.pdf (09.04.2013). 2 Eric HOBSBAWM, Naťiuni şi naťionalism din 1780 până în prezent: program, mit, realitate, Arc, ChişinĖu, 1997, p. 14. 161 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 tensions and parties asking for disintegration, to the centrifugal tendency of states and the economic depression, a European people may be created in a favourable context, involving a long period of time and some possible external threats, meant to consolidate the entire construction and give an additional reason for unity and legitimacy. The first element is vital as long as the process of ceding sovereignty cannot happen suddenly, all at once, and the construction of a European identity over the national ones needs efforts of accommodation and internalisation of the new values. Even if the process seems to stagnate, the Europeans conceive themselves more linked one to another than they did in the `40s. Regarding the possibility of an external danger, the crisis engendered by a foreign threat bring a powerful source of legitimacy to political decision-makers, able to create a strong internal consensus and to consolidate the identity of the group by making the differentiation “we-others”. Such a moment may have the same effect on the European demos as the two world wars had over the American nation. 4. FINAL REMARKS This paper has tried to analyse the idea that the European Union has not yet manage aggregate a demos, in spite of the existence of the legal concept of European citizenship. A second hypothesis was that, even if a European people is missing, it may be constructed in time, in some favourable conditions. Even if the case of the United States is partially comparable, from their model, Europe does not possess three elements. The first one is a similar historical basis – for the United States the construction of a common federal identity started in the absence of a well-coagulated nationalism, while Europe has to cope with the millenary history of human groups, already having their own founding myths, internal cohesion and values. The de-construction of those identities in order to create a new one, or at least their integration in an ampler and more complex identity still keeping the old ones (a process of overlapping identities) is clearly more difficult and asks for greater efforts than in the American case. The second fact is that, from the political standpoint, the European Union does not share an accurate structure of a federation, nor does it possess the one of a classical democratic political regime: there is no written constitution (yet, the construction developed a constitutional character), the Parliament does not have the same relation with the executive power as at the national level, it is hard to identify a unique leadership and to point out a responsible for the politics of the Union, while the public sphere is still rather weak. The last but not the least, Europe does not possess some aspects contributing to the identity construction, as a “mythology” of her own and a commonly spoken language. Therefore, the emergence of a European identity similar to the national one poses some problems: can Europe be conceived as a nation and is this the path to be followed or, in an era of globalisation, should the European identity be thought in a post-national key? If conceived as a national identity, can the European identity and the national one coexist or do they exclude one another? We have considered that it is premature to offer an answer to those questions. A European demos does not currently exist, from our point of view, but it might be created, maybe partially following the American evolution. If this transition happens, it is likely to be a top-down process, given the actual situation of the Union. Yet, the case we have studied is highly particular and has no other precedent. 162 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 There are no comparable situations in the past, on which consistent predictions regarding the transformation of the Union can be made. We may conclude that the hypothesis we have used in this analysis can be sustained by some arguments, but is only partially valid, conditioned by the evolutions to come. Bibliography ANDERSON, Benedict, Imagined Communities. Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism, Verso, London, 1991. BIDAJ, Elda, Ligia BLIDARU, Zamira PODE, Lusine VOSKANYAN, Telos, Ethos, Demos and the Future of the European Union, PanEuropa, 2007, consulted at: http://paneuropa.ro/doc/ReportonDemos.pdf . CEDERMAN, Lars-Erik, Nationalism and Bounded Integration: What It Would Take to Construct a European Demos, European University Institute/ Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, Badia Fiesolana, 2000, consulted at: http://cadmus.eui.eu/bitstream/handle/1814/1674/00_34.pdf. COOPER, Robert, The European Answer to Robert Keagan, in Transatlantic Internationale Politik, No. 2 (2003), consulted at: http://w7.enslsh.fr/amrieu/IMG/pdf/Europe_answers_Kagan_2-03.pdf. FABBRINI, Sergio, Compound Democracies. Why the United States and Europe Are Becoming Similar, Oxford University Press, 2007. HOBBES, Thomas, Leviathan, consulted at: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3207/3207-h/3207-h.htm. HOBSBAWM, Eric, Naþiuni ºi naþionalism din 1780 pânã în prezent: program, mit, realitate, Ed. Arc, Chiºinãu, 1997. HUTCHINSON, John, “The Past, Present, and the Future of the Nation-State”. Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, Winter/Spring 2003, consulted at: http://journal.georgetown.edu/past-issues/4-1-state-of-the-nation/. KRASNER, Stephen, “Rethinking the Sovereign State Model”, Review of International Studies, No. 27, British International Studies Association, 2001, consulted at: http://psfaculty.ucdavis.edu/zmaoz/krasner2001.pdf. LIEBERT, Ulrike, Just Cheap Talk? Rethinking the “No European Demos” Thesis in Light of Discursive Representation Practices, Jean Monnet Centre for European Studies, University of Bremen, Bremen, 2012, consulted at: http://www.monnet-centre.unibremen.de/pdf/2012-1%20Liebert,%20Ulrike.pdf. LOCKE, John, The Second Treatise of Civil Government, consulted at: http://www.constitution.org /jl/2ndtreat.htm. MANIN, Bernard, The Principles of Representative Government, Cambridge University Press, 1997. MCNAIR, Brian, Introducere în comunicarea politicã, Polirom, Iaºi, 2007. PERRINEAU, Pascal, “Les Élections Européennes de Juin 2009 en France: Des élections de second ordre ou de reclassement?”, Revue Internationale de Politique Comparée, Vol. 16, No. 4, 2009, consulted at: http://www.cevipof.com/fichier/p_publication/603/ publication_pdf_ripc_164_0653.pdf . 163 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 ROUSSEAU, Jean-Jacques, Despre contractul social sau principiile dreptului politic, Antet, Bucure ti, 2006. SENELLART, Michel, Artele guvernãrii. De la conceptul de “regimen” medieval la cel de guvernare, Meridiane, Bucure ti, 1998. SIDOR, Daniel, “De la starea naturalã la comunitatea politicã. Intre denunþare ºi delegare”, Sfera Politicii, Vol. XVIII, No. 3 (145), Societatea Civilã Foundation, Bucharest, 2010, consulted at: http://www.sferapoliticii.ro/sfera/145/cuprins.html. SMITH, Anthony, Myths and Memories of the Nation, Oxford University Press, 1999. WALDRON, Jeremy, “John Locke. Social Contract Versus Political Anthropology”, in D. BOUCHER, P. KELLY, The Social Contract from Hobbes to Rawls, Routledge, London, 1994. WEBER, Max, Economy and Society. An Outline of Interpretive Sociology, University of California Press, Los Angeles, 1978. Online resources *** Draft Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe, Part IV, General and Final Provisions, Art. IV-1. The symbols of the Union, consulted at: http://europeanconvention.eu.int/docs/treaty/cv00850.en03.pdf. *** Special Euro-barometer 299. The 2009 European elections, consulted at: http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_299_en.pdf. *** Treaty of Lisbon, Art. 8, consulted at: http://bookshop.europa.eu/en/official-journalof-the-european-union-c-306-17.12.2007pbFXAC07306/?CatalogCategoryID=ARsKABstvzAAAAEj0JEY4e5L. 164 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 Antonio Gramsci’s Concept of Ideology Ioana CRISTEA (DR GULIN) University of Bucharest Abstract: The term and, later on, the concept of ideology have accompanied the theoretical history of the last two centuries. In this brief analysis, the author aims to highlight the key elements in Antonio Gramsci’s concept of ideology. The first part of this contribution discusses some theoretical landmarks, such as the birth and the basic elements of this concept as well as the main arguments against it coming from the area of politics and its theorists. The second part of the contribution talks about the crucial elements of Gramsci’s thoughts on the concept of ideology. The last part of the paper is devoted the author’s conclusions. Keywords: ideology, the end of ideology, class, social phenomenon, structure, super-structure. 1. THEORETICAL LANDMARKS 1.1. The birth of the concept of ideology Over the last two centuries of intellectual activity, one of the most difficult theoretical endeavours in the field of social sciences has been the attempt to find an optimal definition for an abstract and yet very seducing concept, namely that of “ideology”. This because, as Daniel andru wonders: “Fundamentally, is ideology a system of ideas and beliefs, or is it the expression of the manner in which social and political practices are structured?”1 Ever since the 23rd of May 1797, the moment when this term appeared for the first time in an intellectual context, many, philosophers, historians, sociologists, etc. have tried to impose a definition as comprehensive and as exact as possible. The difficulties encountered by these authors resided in the fact that, although “ideology has been a word frequently used in the vocabulary of this field during the last two centuries”, it has experienced “numerous re-significations from one period to the next and from one theorist to another”, entering into the “social vocabulary” along with the modernization and the democratization of societies”.2 The inventor of the term “ideology” is Antoine Louise Destutt de Tracy. The word appears for the first time in his study titled “Memoires sur la faculté de penser”, published in Memoires de l΄Institut National des Sciences et des Arts pour l΄An IV de la République. The author’s goal was to overturn the old classifications in order to introduce a new “science of ideas”. The purpose of this new science was to replace the old type of 1 Daniel ANDRU, “Ideologia”, in Eugen HUZUM (coord.), Concepte și teorii social – politice, Editura Institutul European, Ia i, 2011, p. 163. 2 Idem, Reinventarea ideologiei, Editura Institutul European, Ia i, 2009, p. 18. 165 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 “metaphysical” knowledge with a new kind of knowledge, namely, “scientific” knowledge. Destutt’s thoughts were influenced by Claude Adrien Helvetius’ materialism. In Helvetius’ view, ideas are essentially the result of the influences that the society in which we live has on the individual. People’s representations derive from the sensations that the surrounding objects produce on their senses. Thus, ideology must conduct an objective study of ideas and their origins. In 1801, Destutt published the first volume of Elements d’idéologie, where he carried out a structural analysis of language, a psychological-moral analysis, and a study devoted to economy. In this volume, “ideology” refers to a science of ideas grounded in the empirical through the removal of any gap or uncertainty. For Destutt, existence coincides with existence, or, more precisely, man lives as long as he experiences his own existence. The goal is to reach the elements before knowledge through the decomposition of psychological phenomena, with the aim of demonstrating that exact sciences can be applied to the study of human thought. This is why ideology may be considered an anti-metaphysical science. This position is assumed by taking over a critical valence in relation to all the dogmas which claimed to prove truths in areas in which it was not possible to use practical and empirical knowledge1. In the same vein, one of Destutt’s contemporaries, Melchiorre Gioia, considered that ideology was a “theory of knowledge and passions”.2 1.2. Critics of the concept of ideology 1.2.1. Practitioners Ideology was criticized by both the practitioners and the theorists of politics. At the level of political practice, this conception was criticized from the very beginning by Napoleon Bonaparte, who believed that ideology, as abstract thought, proved to be incapable in its pursuit of truth, lacking the capacity to act upon reality3. This is why Napoleon deliberately changed the meaning of the term, claiming that ideologists were nothing but “doctrinaires”. To be more precise, Napoleon believed that ideologists were people who had little political sense and a limited contact with reality. The ideological opposition against Napoleon was, on the one hand, enlightened by the idea of individual and national freedom, and, on the other, by the idea of legitimacy. And, according to the ideas of that time, legitimacy meant respect for order and traditions. This is why Napoleon was not a mere adventurer who managed to extort, by demagogic means, the good faith of peoples, but more than that, he was the expression of a revolutionary mentality which pretended to modify the secular structures of each country according to the rules of abstract reasoning4. So, the reason why Napoleon felt the need to position himself against the concept of ideology and against its supporters was political and had to do with the opposition of the intellectuals of that time, who saw themselves as ideologists and Angelo D’ORSI, Guida alla storia del pensiero politico, La Nuova Italia Editrice, Firenze, 1995, pp. 125, 126. Melchiore GIOIA, Del merito e delle ricompense, Pirotta, Milano,1822-1823, p. 168. Karl MANHEIM, Ideologia e utopia, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1965, p. 73. Salvo MASTELONE, Storia ideologica d’Europa da Sieyès a Marx (1789-1848), Sansoni editore, Firenze, 1984, p. 132. 1 2 3 4 166 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 opposed the political projects promoted by Napoleon in France. Another explanation, which transcends the political element, pertains to the broader part that ideology may play in society. Thus, the future first emperor of France, with his political wits, observed what andru also states in his study Ideologia, namely, that: “[…] as a central figure of the social imagery, ideology plays a fundamental role not only in influencing social and political reality, but also in legitimating a particular policy, in view of its integration”.1 1.2.2. Theorists At the theoretical level, criticism against ideology, as a mental process, closes with the so called “end of ideology”. Specialists are of the opinion that the latter started with I. Kant’s criticism of knowledge and Feuerbach’s and K. Marx’s opposition to classic German philosophy and its failure to establish “scientific metaphysics”.2 In Kant’s mind, there is a clear relationship between reasoning, and, as a result, philosophizing, and knowledge: “To think an object and to cognize an object are by no means the same thing. In cognition there are two elements: firstly, the conception, whereby an object is cogitated (the category); and, secondly, the intuition, whereby the object is given. For supposing that to the conception a corresponding intuition could not be given, it would still be a thought as regards its form, but without any object, and no cognition of anything would be possible by means of it, inasmuch as, so far as I knew, there existed and could exist nothing to which my thought could be applied”. 3 Kant concludes that to think is clearly linked to an ideology, but it is not compulsory for the latter to overlap with knowledge. With Karl Marx’s works the modern theory of ideology makes a qualitative leap even if it starts from the premise described by Napoleon. Marx knew Destutt’s works very well, as he carried out a thorough analysis of the economic doctrines presented by the French thinker, but he also criticized “ideology” for having stolen history’s empirical elements, reducing it to a list of “ideological products generated by human conscience”4. Besides Napoleon’s criticism, who saw ideology as an abstract construction which lacked any contact with reality, Marx also puts forth the argument of “instrumentality”, because it contributes to the concealment of social conflicts, being nothing but an illusion. And this because all the philosophical, political, moral, and religious theories are not autonomous, as they are established by people, and are due to the realities they have to face throughout their lives. The only areas in which they are Daniel ANDRU, “Ideologia...cit.”, p. 163. Umberto CERRONI, La cultura della democrazia, Métis editrice, Chieti, 1991, p. 179. Immanuel KANT, Critica rațiunii pure , 3rd ed., translated by Nicolae Bagdasar and Elena Moisuc, Editura IRI, Bucure ti, 1998, p. 67. 4 Karl MARX, Il capitale, (a cura di D. Cantimori), vol. II., Editori Riunti, Roma, 1970, pp. 499-507. 1 2 3 167 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 autonomous are those in which the relationships of production, the means of production and their use are shared according to class principles1. As a result of this definition, Marx defines ideology as “false ideas” that material relationships inspire to material actors. However, in spite of this criticism, neither Marx nor Engels denied the fact that ideology also encompasses elements of truth2. These authors define ideology as follows: the generation of ideas, representations, conscience, which is firstly and directly intertwined with the material relationships of people and the language of real life. People’s representations and thoughts and their mood changes seem to be here an emanation of their own material behaviour. If in all the ideologies people and their relationships 3seem to mix as in a camera obscura, this phenomenon stems from the historical process of one’s own life as that of the objects deriving from the immediate physical process. Another critic of ideology is Vilfredo Pareto who, due to his reticence in accepting the term, replaced it with the concept of “theory”. If Marx linked the concept to a historically determined society which uses it as an instrument of domination, Pareto believed that man is an ideological animal and so ideology expresses some specific psychological needs of human nature.4. Pareto denies ideology its qualities of a science because the two act in distinct fields: one uses facts while the other uses conscience. However, although ideologies are non-scientific theories, they can be useful to societies because man is prone to be influenced by sentimental arguments more than by rational ones. Another type of finality would be its capacity to convince people to act. When he analyses the period between the two world wars from an ideological perspective, Karl Manheim distinguishes two levels of ideologies: particular and total. The ideologies in the former category determine the opponent’s points of view while the latter takes into account his entire view of the world, and thus there emerges a theoretical level that analyses the relationships established between social-historical groups5. Starting from here, Manheim individualizes the ideology-utopia conceptual couple. By the term “ideology” the author attempts to state that, under particular circumstances, the factors dwelling in the collective conscience of several groups conceal the real situation of society. The concept of “utopia” sheds light on the existence of groups which are in a situation in which their own view does not represent an objective framework of that situation, being used only as a direction towards action6. Gyorghy Lukacs distinguishes between “true” and “false” ideology, in the sense that there are ideologies which interpret the historical process in its entirety and ideologies which do not go beyond their own class view7. Following the Marxist tradition, Louis Althusser believes that an ideology is a system that possesses its own logic and its own rigour of representations (images, myths, See Karl MARX, Friedrich ENGELS, L’ideologia tedesca, Editori Riuniti, Roma, 1994. Angelo D’ORSI, Guida alla storia...cit., p. 129. Karl MARX, Frederich ENGELS, L’ideologia tedesca, Editori Riuniti, Roma, 1877, p. 13. Norberto BOBBIO, “L’ideologia in Pareto e in Marx”, in Saggi sulla scienza politica in Italia, f.e. 1988, pp. 79107. 5 Karl MANHEIM, Ideologia e utopia...cit., p.61. 6 Ibidem, p. 41. 7 Gyorghy LUKACS, Storia e coscienza di classe, Sugar & Co, Milano, 1970, p. 83. 1 2 3 4 168 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 ideas or concepts, accordingly), being endowed with a historical life and function in the structure of a particular society; ideology as a system of representation is different from science because its social practical function prevails over its theoretical function1. At the same time, Althusser attempts to reject the Marxist ideology/science antinomy, trying to advocate the idea of an ideology in general and not of a theory of various ideologies. In order to support this theory, the author advances two theses: a) ideology represents the imaginary relationship of individuals to their own conditions of existence; b) ideology has a material existence. According to this definition, ideology is part of any “social entirety” and this is why only an “ideologized conception of the world” could imagine a society with no ideology and admit the utopian idea that, its disappearance could be replaced by science2. Ideology is indispensable to a dominant class not only in order to maintain its dominance over other social groups but also to become a dominant class. At the same time, in the socialist society, ideology has a twofold purpose: to maintain the dominant class and to transform individuals3. Vladimir I. Lenin believes that ideologies are systems of ideas, theories that the protagonists of class struggle use in their fight. Of course, they can be more or less true, more or less false, but, above all, they are “useful”. Their usefulness does not necessarily depend on truth4. George Sorel shows that “ideology”, just as “utopia”, belongs to the category of “myths” seen as a system of images or fantastic representations capable of leading or stimulating the proletariat in its revolutionary political fight5. Max Weber said that when a social phenomenon, regardless of its nature, needs to be explained, it is necessary to look for and trace back the cases on which individual behaviours are based. They believe that, in the case of failure of this type of logic, irrational factors can be introduced. Raymond Boudon tried to show that ideologies are a natural ingredient in social life. At the same time, the protagonists have good reasons to adhere to false or doubtful ideas, and any faith in ideology should not be regarded as a cause of passions or fanaticism6. Raymond Aron, who belongs to the category of non-Marxists, believed that political ideologies always gather, in a more or less fortunate manner, fact judgements and value judgements; they express a sure view of the world and a will to act. For Edward Shils, ideology is a variant of the systems of positive normative faith which thrive in any human society, depending on various “views of the world”. Ideologies distinguish themselves by the explicit nature of their formulations. They are narrower, more rigid, and reluctant to innovation, but they spread and they are accepted with the help of strong emotional elements and command the full adhesion of those who embrace them. At the same time, they share with the systems and movements of thought Louise ALTHUSSER, Per Marx, Editori Riuniti, Roma, 1969, p. 207. Idem, Sull’ideologia, Dadalo Libri, Bari, 1976, p. 50. Idem, “Marxismo e umanismo” , in Critica marxistă, VIII, 1970, pp. 197-216. Cf. Raymond BOUDON, L’ideologia. Origine dei prejudici, Piccola Biblioteca Einaudi, Torino, 1991, p. 25. George SOREL, Considerazioni sulla violenza, prefazione di E. Santarelli con una introduzione di B. Croce alla prima edizione, Laterza, Bari, 1930, p. 177. 6 Raymond BOUDON, L’ideologia...cit., p. 18. 1 2 3 4 5 169 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 (existentialism, pragmatism and Hegelian idealism) the trait that they are based on explicit or systematic intellectual constructions. The difference between systems and ideologies resides in the fact that ideologies command full and instant adhesion while the systems of thought do not. To sum up, Shils identifies eight criteria which determine the destruction of ideologies by other types of systems. They are: 1) the exclusive nature of formulations; 2) their will to differentiate themselves from other systems of belief, past or present; 3) their will to regroup around a particular belief, positive or normative; 4) their rejection of innovation; 5) the passionate nature of their spreading; 6) the intolerant nature of their norms; 7) unreserved adhesion; 8) the association with institutions whose purpose is to strengthen and materialize their own beliefs1. In his turn, Ferruccio Rossi Landi tried to systematize the criticism against ideology and he summed up eleven characterizations attributed to it: 1) mythology and folklore; 2) illusion and deceit 3) common sense; 4) lie, falsification, obscurantism 5) fraud or treachery 6) false thought, in general; 7) philosophy; 8) view of the world; 9) intuition of the world; 10) system of behaviour; 11) feeling. Ferrucio arranged these characterizations around two great key conceptions: (16) ideology as false thought, (8-11) ideology as a view of the world, the link between these two being established by point (7), represented by the pair ideology-philosophy2. 2. ANTONIO GRAMSCI’S CONCEPT OF IDEOLOGY Antonio Gramsci is the most important Italian Marxist theorist from the interwar period. His theoretical reflections have had a major impact on the area of left wing ideas since the end of World War II and up to now. The importance of Gramsci’s theoretical contribution also resides in the fact that the impact of his ideas has not been limited to the Italian academic area, because his theoretical approaches have reached all the continents. This is why after World War II we can talk about a “Gramscian School”. It is interesting to notice that the most important analyses grouped in Quaderni del Carcere Edward SHILS, The concept and function of ideology, vol. VII, International Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, 1986, pp. 66-76. 2 Ferruccio ROSSI, Ideologia, Mondadori, Milano, 1978, p. 16. 1 170 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 (1929-1935), a work written while he was in prison, are also Gramsci’s most important theories. This work was translated in almost all the countries of Europe, in the United States of America, in Japan, and in Latin America, Brazil being a revealing example in this respect. The importance of Gramsci’s reflections does not reside only in their geographical spreading1. The author’s fundamental contribution to the area of Marxist thought is that he emphasized “[…] how important it was to overcome a certain rigidity within Marxism, to make it more active in relation to the new political demands, advocating for the creation of a thought more adequate to a historical situation that had changed entirely since the events that had taken place in Bolshevik Russia”.2 This element is very real in Gramsci’s works. The Sardinian author understood that the Italian social-political realities in the early years of the 19th century were different from those of tsarist Russia. The historical, social, and political conditions which had allowed the development of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia were not similar to those of post-war Italy. However, the two countries had some elements in common: for instance, the ratio of rural population and big land owners, the opacity of Italian elites, similar to that of Russian elites, with respect to the agrarian issue, the incipient stage of industrial development in both countries, the insufficient development of class conscience within the proletariat, the impact of World War I on their territories, their populations, etc. However, there were major differences between the cultures and the civilizations of the two countries. If we are to take into account only one aspect, that of territorial unification and state unity, the differences were huge. In the Russian case, the state was created between the 13th and the 18th century, after a process of territorial conquest, according to feudal principles. In Italy, Il Risorgimento began, according to the specialists’ general opinion, at the beginning of the 20th century3, owing to the impact that the ideas of the French Revolution of 1789 had in Europe, and, also, in Italy. From here we can clearly see that the constitutive processes that led to the emergence of the two states were profoundly different, and this is why the ideas that animated them were also different. The immediate consequence of these different realities is that the elites who fought for the materialization of the two desiderata were also different. In Russia, there was a feudal elite ruled by an authoritarian monarch, in Italy, there was a bourgeois, liberal elite, which subordinated its actions to a constitutional monarch4. As a consequence, the social and political relations established between the two societies were entirely different. According to Gramsci, the trap in which the Marxist theorists who supported positivist-mechanistic theories got entangled was that they attempted to explain history as a whole based on the principle of linear social development, in which historical processes are governed by dialectical laws of development5. This materialist-mechanistic view prevailed during the second International. This is why, with reference to Gramsci’s approach to this way of seeing history and social evolution, several scholars noticed that Gheorghe Lencan STOICA, Gramsci, cultura și politica, Editura PoliticĖ, Bucure ti, 1987, p. 8. Ibidem, p. 10. For more details, see Ioana CRISTEA (DRĕGULIN), “ coli de gândire în abordarea fenomenului risorgimental”, in Cultura medieșeană, II, Media , 2013, pp. 85-91. 4 For more details, see Ioana CRISTEA (DRĕGULIN), Antonio Gramsci şi Risorgimento in Bibliotheca Historica, Philosophica et Geographica, vol. XI, Collegium Mediense II, ComunicĖri tiin ifice, nr. 11, 2012, pp. 128-133. 5 Ibidem, p. 36. 1 2 3 171 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 in the Sardinian theorist’s mind: “the evolution of society from the trend-related and dialectic perspective of a field of possibilities which condition the role of the subjective factor, of «will» based on some structural necessity. This is why necessity coincides with what is only a posteriori determinable, because the result is also the product of the struggle of the «will». So, it is only a posteriori that one can establish whether political action (the historical process) achieved its goal, because the situation was not mature enough (thesis), or maybe due to subjective forces (antithesis) which were not sufficiently elaborated yet1. In Gramsci’s mind, political thinking is a type of research that is deeply grounded in the social practice of a time. Gramsci’s philosophical conception continues in his political thoughts. Together they form an indestructible unit because the Sardinian author’s goal is to give answers regarding the relationship established between the structure and the super-structure of a society, between objective determinism and the role of social action2. In his attempt to explain social phenomena and the “course” of history, Gramsci undertook an analysis of the concept of ideology. The author of the Quaderni questioned the issue of the origins and the meaning of the concept of ideology. Ever since he started to use the term, its meaning and signification became manifold in Gramsci’s mind, even though, in Tracy’s opinion, it was only seen as the “science of ideas”. And this because analysis is a method recognised by science, and, for this reason, the concept’s signification was that of “analysis of ideas”, that is, it aimed to “search for the origins of ideas”. “Ideology is an aspect of «sensualism», that is, of 18th century French materialism. It means «science of ideas», because analysis was only a method recognized and applied by science to the «analysis of ideas», more precisely the «search for the origins of ideas”.3 The term ideology was used by Gramsci ever since the early texts of his Quaderni with the meaning of “system of political ideas”; on several occasions he used the expression Mazzinian ideology (Q1, pp. 43, 44); when he referred to the Jacobins, he said that they followed a particular ideology (Q1, pp. 48, 61); when he analysed the engaged literature he mentioned that there were some works with a determining ideological-political character, democratic in nature, with respect to the ideologies of ‘48 (Q3, pp. 78, 358); when he used the political argument, he made use of expressions such as Masonic ideology, puritan ideology (Q1, pp. 157, 138), Southern ideology (Q1, pp. 44, 46), patriotic ideology (Q2, pp. 107, 254), etc.4. The concept of ideology is both a connecting and a separating bridge between Gramsci and Marx. The manifold meaning acquired by the concept in time is given, in the first place, by the fact that, right from the start, he aimed to go beyond the limits imposed by the old philosophy by using the scientific method5. Ibidem, p. 38. Radu FLORIAN, Antonio Gramsci, un marxist contemporan, Editura PoliticĖ, Bucure ti, 1982, p. 113. Antonio GRAMSCI, Quaderni del Carcere, (a cura di Valentino Gerratana), vol. I, Quaderni 1-5 (1929-1932), Einaudi, 2007, p.453. 4 For further details, see Guido LIGUORI, Pasquale VOZA (a cura di), Dizionario Gramsciano 1926-1937, Carocci editore, Roma, 2009, pp. 402,403. 5 Gian Pietro CALABRÒ, Antonio Gramsci. La «transizione» politica, Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, Napoli, 1982, p. 32. 1 2 3 172 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 In order to understand the peculiarities of Gramsci’s theoretical approaches an observation needs to be made. Being imprisoned, Gramsci was unable to study the entire Marxist bibliography. For instance, he did not read the German Ideology (authors K. Marx and F. Engels, a.n.) which, although written in 1845-1846, was published much later in Italy (1932). Moreover, he could not have access to Engels’ latest writings, in which the German scholar saw ideology as “false conscience”. The reference work that Gramsci studied in prison was A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859), edited by Marx and Engels. The Preface of this book states: “Then begins an era of «social revolution». The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure. In studying such transformations it is always necessary to distinguish between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production, which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, artistic or philosophic – in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out”.1 From here, Gramsci took over two elements in his analysis: the idea of ideological forms and the study of mechanistic interpretations. Of course, as we have previously shown, Gramsci studied mechanistic interpretations with the purpose of showing that there can also be other types of approaches. Gramsci’s option to accept the idea that there is no single ideology but several ideological forms shows us that his attitude towards the concept of ideology was neutral. This element of neutrality is particularly important because it distances the Sardinian theorist from the negative connotations present <t13>in Marxist thought. This option is also due to the fact that neither Marx nor Engels managed to give a punctual definition of the concept of ideology, even though, as F. Gentile shows, they “used the term ideology quite much”2. This approach is not singular in Gramsci but is also present in the socialist and Marxist intellectual circles at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the20th century. The second element taken over from the Preface was the relationship with mechanistic interpretations. The Sardinian theorist considered that ideologies themselves were not negative, but that not all ideologies were equal. In Quaderni, Gramsci noticed that: “[…] the mistake made when ideologies were analysed” is due to the fact that “this name was given both to the superstructure needed by a particular structure and to the arbitrary rigmaroles produced by certain people”… thus the concept became “…extensive, that is, it modified and distorted the theoretical analysis of the concept of ideology”3. (This is why we cannot believe that the superstructure is nothing but a mere reflection of the political structure.) Karl MARX, Friedrich ENGELS, Opere alese în două volume, 3rd ed., vol. 1, Editura PoliticĖ, Bucure ti, 1966, p. 314. 2 Francesco GENTILE, “Morte e trasfigurazione della politica nell’ideologia”, Nuova Antologia, n. 2107 , July 1976, pp. 3. 3 Antonio GRAMSCI, Quaderni del Carcere...cit., p. 868. 1 173 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 “The claim (presented as an essential postulate of historical materialism) that presenting and exposing any fluctuation of politics is ideology as an immediate expression of structure must be fought against from a theoretical viewpoint, as primitive infantilism”.1 Starting from these presumptions, Gramsci advanced an original antimechanistic and humanist interpretation of historical materialism. “[...]there was omitted that in a very common expression (historical materialism a.n.) we must stress the first term: «historical» and not the second, whose origin is metaphysical. The philosophy of praxis is absolute historicism, thought rendered absolute, incorporated into the world and worldly, an absolute humanism of history. It is in this direction that the core of the new conception about the world should be explored”.2 When he analysed the existence of some historical-natural premises for the development of society, the Sardinian theorist had a viewpoint which was almost identical to that presented by Marx and Engels in Ideology. For him, philosophy and the history of philosophy are inseparable from man’s actions, from his practical, historical activity.3 However, in Gramsci’s mind, a class or a “social group” has from the start a first level of existence, which is mostly economic, and its scope of action is limited to the reproduction of its own interests, particular and corporative. In this stage, each group member finds himself in a state of heightened individuality, being in a situation in which he can achieve a corporative conscience of some common interests that could link him to other members. When the members of a social group manage to acquire the conscience of group homogeneity and then are aware that their interests could also be of interest to other social groups, being able to harmonize them with those of the majority, then there emerges the phenomenon whereby the social group starts to have a political existence4. We see, from these statements, that starting from Gramsci, the concept of ideology receives a particularly different meaning, which is not present in the Marxist doctrine. Another element described by the Sardinian theorist resides in the relationship established between ideologies. For Gramsci not all ideologies are equal. Ideology is the common and necessary ground of conscience and knowledge, but the superiority of Marxist ideology is given both by the awareness of its own character, which is eternal and absolute, but also by the awareness of partisanship, given by the existence of a historical moment and its belonging to a class5. How can we explain this classification in Gramsci? The answer is provided by Palmiro Togliatti. The historic leader of the Italian Communist Party (ICP), when he talked about Gramsci several years after the latter’s 1 2 3 4 5 Ibidem, p. 871. Idem, Opere alese, Editura PoliticĖ, Bucure ti, 1969, pp. 125-126. Gheorghe Lencan STOICA, Gramsci, cultura și politica...cit., p. 35. Antonio GRAMSCI, Quaderni del Carcere...cit., pp. 1583, 1584. Guido LIGUORI, Pasquale VOZA (a cura di), Dizionario Gramsciano...cit., p. 400. 174 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 death, characterized him as “a theorist of politics, a practitioner of politics, that is, a fighter”1. So, Gramsci was an ideologist, meaning that he was a theorist but also a politician, a political action man. While observing this reality, we cannot but see how Napoleon’s characterisation of ideologists as doctrinaires, abstract thinkers, who want to replace politicians, practitioners, by imposing ideas born in an intellectual laboratory, is not valid in this case. The symbolic passage from Gramsci the theorist to Gramsci the politician is identifiable in Quaderno X, where Gramsci analyses the manner in which B. Croce refers to political ideologies: Croce’s doctrine (a.n.) within the area of political ideologies “clearly stems from the philosophy of praxis: they are practical constructs, instruments of political direction”2. For the philosophy of praxis, ideologies are not absolutely arbitrary, they represent real historical facts, whose real nature should be revealed, and which should be fought against, for reasons of political struggle and not for moral reasons. Revealing the nature of ideologies should allow us to become “intellectually free and governed by those who govern, in order to create a new ideology after having destroyed another. This could be one of the reading keys that would make us understand the passage from Gramsci the theorist to Gramsci the politician. This is where the influence of N. Machiavelli on the Sardinian theorist is clearly visible. It is significant that an important part of his theoretical reflections were grouped under the name Note despre Machiavelli [Notes on Machiavelli]. As Florian shows: “Machiavelli’s works represent the system of reference for Gramsci’s political thought because its axis is the idea of creating collective will, of stimulating and organising it in order to materialize some determined goals of history3. Machiavelli’s endeavour was to introduce scientific sense into the approach to the political phenomenon. For this reason, we see how the Florentine thinker was one of Tracy’s predecessors, as well as a predecessor of the term and then the concept of ideology. “[…] the difference between how people live and how they should live is so great that he who leaves aside what is for what should be will rather find out how people become doomed than how they could prevail”.4 Machiavelli does not advocate an action deprived of ethical criteria but the existence of autonomy for the political in relation to these.5 Thus, ideology is not something arbitrary; it compulsorily operates within the course of history. This is why the role of the philosophy of praxis is to fight and reveal the nature of the “domination tool”. Starting from this statement, the ideology of praxis has the role of revealing the true nature of ideologies, more precisely, it must prove that any ideology is an instrument of domination and so it is a component part of the domination tools that a class possesses and uses in order to maintain its domination over another class. This is why ideology becomes the fundamental element which leads to a 1 Palmiro TOGLIATTI, Appunti preparatori della relazione al I convegno di studi gramsciani, Roma, gennaio 1958, p. 35. 2 Antonio GRAMSCI, Quaderni del Carcere...cit., p. 1319. 3 Radu FLORIAN, Antonio Gramsci un marxist contemporan...cit., p. 113. 4 Niccolo MACHIAVELLI, Principele, Editura tiin ificĖ, Bucure ti, 1960, p. 58. 5 Radu FLORIAN, Antonio Gramsci un marxist contemporan...cit. , p. 115. 175 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 breach between the ruled and the rulers. The role of the philosopher of praxis reveals the true structure of ideology, even if it is surrounded by the shroud of universality. In Gramsci, the philosophy of praxis was conceived as a synthesis and an overcoming, a conception based on the organic and dialectical unity of its three components (philosophy, economy, and politics)1. “The philosophy of praxis is not confused with and is not reduced to any philosophy; it is not original only insofar as it overcomes the preceding philosophies but mainly because it opens an entirely new road, that is, it renews from start to end the manner in which philosophy is conceived”.2 The fight in which it gets engaged does not have a moral connotation, we are dealing with a political struggle whose aim is to overcome the gap created between the ruled and the rulers3. This explains why the Sardinian theorist agreed with Marx when he referred to the role of ideology. For Gramsci: “Ideologies are ridiculous when they are empty words and are used to create confusion, to deceive and to enslave social energies that are potentially antagonistic”.4 And this because Gramsci, “[…] as a revolutionary, as a man of action, cannot act outside ideologies and practical schemes, which are potential historical entities in course of forming”.5 Marxist ideology is just as any other ideology but distinguishes itself from the others by the fact that it does not deny contradictions, but, rather, it analyses them such as they are. What it has in common with other ideologies is the fact that it bears some usefulness for a particular social group and it does not claim to be something more. Another element taken into account by Gramsci is the nature of ideologies. From his point of view, we need to distinguish between: “…ideologies which are historically organic and are necessary to a given structure, and arbitrary, rationalist, «wanted» ideologies. And here he does not take into account only Marxism but also the so called “progressive” ideologies. From this moment on, Gramsci makes a connection between the concept of hegemony6 and that of ideology. For him, ideology “ensures the most intimate binding matter of the civil society, and, so, of the state”7. Thus, hegemony can be defined as the Gheorghe Lencan STOICA, Gramsci, cultura și politica...cit., p. 36. Antonio GRAMSCI, Quaderni del Carcere...cit., p. 1436. Gian Pietro CALABRÒ, Antonio Gramsci. La «transizione» politica...cit., p. 34. Antonio GRAMSCI, “Astrattismo e intransigenza” [11 May 1918], in Idem, Il nostro Marx 1918-1919 (a cura di Sergio Caprioglio), Einaudi, Torino 1984, p. 17. 5 Ibidem. 6 Hegemony is the key concept around which Antonio Gramsci developed the theoretical construction that explained the Risorgimento as a phenomenon, the disparities between the Italian North and South, and the gaps that divided the civilisations of these two peninsular geographical areas. 7 Antonio GRAMSCI, Quaderni del Carcere...cit., p. 1306. 1 2 3 4 176 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 capacity to organize the ideological substratum of society into a historical block1. And hegemony is imposed by a dominant class. This domination cannot be separated from the issue of power. The dominant class has its own “ideological structure”; more precisely, we are talking about a type of: “[…] material organisation whose aim is to maintain, defend and develop the theoretical and ideological «front». The most dynamic part is represented by the press in general, by publishing houses (which, implicitly or explicitly, have a program and support a particular trend), political newspapers, all kinds of journals, scientific, literary, philological, general, periodical, and even parish magazines”.2 Ideology can be imposed by a class or by a social group through hegemony. Yet, in order to understand this relationship, we need to analyse power relationships. When Gramsci analysed the concept of hegemony, the Marxist literature encompassed two dominant views. The first is visible in Marx’s and Engels’ works. The Manifesto of the Communist Party says that: “political power is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another…"3, in The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, it emerges as “… the state of the most powerful, economically dominant class, which, through the medium of the state, becomes also the politically dominant class, and thus acquires new means of holding down and exploiting the oppressed class”4. And Engels, in the Preface to The Civil War in France, believed that “…the state is nothing but a machine for the oppression of one class by another, and indeed in the democratic republic no less than in the monarchy”5. The second view belongs to V.I. Lenin: “[…] the state is an organ of class domination, an organ for the oppression of one class by another... the state is a special organisation of force, an organisation of violence in order to repress a particular class”6. For Lenin, the state’s role is the same regardless of the historical age: “The methods for exerting violence have changed but the existence of the state has always meant, in any society, the existence of a group of people who rule, command, dominate, and who, in order to hold power, possess a system of physical constraint, a system for exerting violence, with the weapons that correspond to the level of technology of that age”.7 The result envisaged by Lenin was the outburst of a violent revolution which would lead to the recognition of the proletariat’s political domination, and of its dictatorship: “Replacing the bourgeois state with a proletarian one is impossible without a violent revolution… (which should lead to - a.n.) the recognition of the proletariat’s political domination, of its dictatorship, that is, of a power which is not shared with anyone and which is supported directly by the affirmed force of the masses”.8 Michele FILIPPINI, “Tra scienza e senso comune. Dell’ideologia in Gramsci”, in Scienza & Politica, vol. XXV, No. 47, 2012, pp. 99. 2 Ibidem, p. 332. 3 Karl MARX, Friedrich ENGELS, Opere, vol. 4, Editura PoliticĖ, Bucure ti, 1958, p. 488. 4 Idem, Opere alese, vol. II , Editura P.M.R., Bucure ti, 1952, p. 292. 5 Ibidem, vol. I, p. 498. 6 Vladimir I. LENIN, Opere, vol. 25, E.S.P.L.P., Bucure ti, 1954, pp. 381, 396. 7 Ibidem, vol. 29, p. 462. 8 Ibidem, vol. 25, p. 354. 1 177 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 By the manner in which they analyse the social relationships established within the state, Marx and Engels are profoundly anti-democratic. They have a schematic, mechanistic view of human nature, of its evolution, of the relationships between individuals or between individuals and the state. Their theoretical conception, based on the fact that the evolution of capitalism would inevitably lead to the outburst of class struggle and the imposition of the proletariat’s dictatorship, proved to be false. And this because in England, seen, at that time, as the most industrially advanced country in the world, and whose capitalism was considered to be the most well structured, this historic “event” has never happened. The “victory” of the proletarian movement took place in tsarist Russia, the country where the bourgeoisie, the proletariat, and the liberal regime were the least developed from the great European states. Moreover, we cannot talk about a class struggle but rather of a coup d’état that the paramilitary Bolshevik troops, armed by the German state, put into practice. This is why it is obvious that the reasoning of the two German theorists was not confirmed in practice. In Lenin’s case, things are much clearer. We are dealing with an anti-system project, totalitarian in nature, which inspired the Marxist view of society, but whose original sin was the place in which it materialised. Their claim of imposing the same model within any kind of state, regardless of its development stage, in the Braudelian sense, proved to be a failure. Coming back to Gramsci, he took over the term hegemony from Lenin, but he used it in the Quaderni in a manifold manner1. In his writings, we see how the term hegemony develops into a concept. If, initially, the Sardinian theorist takes over the meaning of the term hegemony in the sense used by Lenin, namely of that of the “proletariat’s dictatorship”, when it would reach a position from which it could rule and dominate, in Quaderni, this restrictive interpretation disappears. In the writings which analyse the Risorgimento phenomenon, we see that Gramsci distances himself from Lenin’s view of the concept of hegemony, because he removes the economic element. In fact, the economically dominant class such as it is presented by Lenin no longer imposes its hegemony by means of a system of physical constraint. In the Italian case, hegemony imposed itself by the power of attraction that the dominant class (the Action Party) exerted over its subordinated classes and mainly over the intellectuals.2 We see how Gramsci, in the Quaderni, is aware of the social complexity, given by social stratification, and this is why, in order to build and to impose the hegemony of one class it is necessary and compulsory to establish an alliance policy with other subordinate classes directed against a dominant block. And for this to happen, ideology must be seen as an “organic historical philosophy”, called upon “to organise human masses”, to “allow the creation of an awareness of their own position”.3 And in order to achieve this awareness, a political-moral guide is needed, which should not necessarily be irrational and which Gramsci calls organic ideology. It is different from arbitrary ideology, which is not historically necessary4. 1 Ioana CRISTEA (DRĕGULIN), “The Evolution of the Concept of Hegemony in Antonio Gramsci’s Works”, Cogito, Vol. V, No. 3, 2013. 2 For an ampler view on the evolution of the concept of hegemony, see Ioana CRISTEA (DRĕGULIN), “The Evolution of the Concept of Hegemony in Antonio Gramsci’s Works…cit.”. 3 Antonio GRAMSCI, Quaderni del Carcere...cit., pp. 868-869. 4 Franco ROSITI, “Ideologia”, in Paolo FARNETI (a cura di), Il mondo contemporaneo. Politica e società, I, La Nuova Italia, Firenze 1979, p. 6. 178 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 3. CONCLUSIONS The theoretical approaches that various theorists have used in the analysis of the concept of ideology over the years show that one important issue has always been the attempt to demonstrate its scientific or non-scientific nature. This is a very important issue because if, in itself, ideology is a science, then it could be covered by truth and thus it would be legitimate; on the contrary, if it is triggered in the area of irrational theories, then it loses its legitimacy. Once this stage is overcome, almost all the authors notice that, by the clarity of its own goals and by making explicit the methods used, ideology has an important role in the activation of the masses and thus it manages to solve a fundamental issue in all societies, namely, social immobility. From the moment they adhere to an ideology, the masses play an active role in political life, producing profound transformations at the level of society. The result of these mutations determines a new image of that community and imposes, for a long or short amount of time, a new reality in the political area. This is why the emergence of ideologies is fundamental, because they accompany the development of the process of modernization and they influence it, allowing the various social actors to express themselves. The genesis of Gramsci’s thought happened in the difficult moments of World War I and in the restless years that followed it. It was a period in which, for the first time after 1789, there developed a crisis of the bourgeois regime and of the liberal government type. It was a crisis announced by Marx and Engels in their works, but we should notice that it did not develop due to the reasons invoked by the two theorists. On this background, the Marxist ideas spread heavily in the peninsula. From an ideological viewpoint, it was not only a crisis of the historical liberal right but also an identity crisis of the democratic left, of socialism. The impact that the Bolshevik Revolution of October 1917 had on the socialist movement, created, at the political level, a breach which led to the development of the ICP, and, at the theoretical level, allowed Gramsci’s development. At the same time, in Italy, the crisis of the bourgeois regime made the petty bourgeoisie get closer to an authoritarian movement with totalitarian tendencies such as Fascism. Gramsci analysed the crisis of the bourgeois state through the lens of the Italian historical evolution from the moment when the Risorgimento phenomenon began and up to the Fascists’ conquest of political power. At the theoretical level, there is a great confrontation of ideas between two great theorists: Croce and Gramsci. Positioned on different political sides, each of them legitimized their ideological options through the analysis of the Risorgimento phenomenon. This is why we can say that in his writings Gramsci uses Croce’s ideas to create, in a mirror, an innovating theory that aimed to provide an answer to the main themes of reflection of that time. At the same time, Gramsci continued the core of ideas promoted by Machiavelli, not only at the political level but also at the level of philosophical research, because the Florentine thinker refused fatalism and the passive acceptance of historical faith.1 1 Radu FLORIAN, Antonio Gramsci un marxist contemporan...cit., p. 114. 179 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 Gramsci’s contribution to the study of the term and the concept of ideology in the 20thcentury is very important. Michael Freeden, in his study titled Ideology, showed that Louis Althusser, Karl Mannheim and Antonio Gramsci are the theorists who brought the most important contributions to the analysis of the concept of ideology in the 20th century.1 Radu Florian, one of the most important scholars of Gramsci’s thought in Romania, showed how “[…] in spite of the fact that Gramsci’s works do not have a systematic nature, do not encompass didactic definitions and clarifications, and are not easily accessible, they generated – under the circumstances of their break off and delimitation from dogmatism, a keen interest within contemporary Marxism”.2 In order to explain the role, the terminological valences, and the nature of the concept of ideology, Gramsci introduces into the Italian theoretical area the term hegemony, which, later on, he transforms into a concept. Here, Gramsci brings a major contribution to the theoretical level because, starting from the meanings provided by Marx, Engels and Lenin to the term hegemony, he imposes in the literature the concept of hegemony. The difference is major and original, because Gramsci uses a complex analysis, through the use of concepts such as: structure, superstructure, power, supremacy, domination, historical block, subordinate classes, dominant classes, the philosophy of praxis, social group, etc. For Gramsci, ideology is not a unitary “moloch”3, a pre-established, coherent block of ideas and positions, which is built in order to be installed in the minds of the subordinates by intellectuals, ideologists or party members. On the contrary, it represents a complex form of the social world, which is made of different parts, of various elements4. Of course, as we have shown in this study, Gramsci delimits himself from the negative meaning that Napoleon attributed to ideology, regarded as “ideas which claim to orient politics”, issued by intellectuals who aimed to replace “real politics by abstract considerations”.5 Gramsci recognises the existence and the importance of ideologies, even if, in his mind, they are different and have unequal values. For the Sardinian author, ideology must be used by a group or a social class in its fight with the dominant or subordinate class. The argument in favour of its use is political, not moral in nature. As we have shown in the first part of this study, the impact of Gramsci’s ideas was a major one worldwide. In the United States of America, the American conservatives noticed the influence of Gramscian ideas at the level of north-American political elites: “At the beginning of the 20th century, an unknown communist, named Antonio Gramsci, theorised that «a long march towards institutions» is necessary before socialism and relativism become victorious. Up to that moment, a large part of the radical left still believed that the conquest of power could happen only after they had been able to convince a sufficient number of people from the proletariat to embrace this cause. But Gramsci theorised that, by conquering key institutions and by using power, there could Michael FREEDEN, Ideologia, Codice edizioni, Torino, 2008, p. 17. Radu FLORIAN, Antonio Gramsci un marxist contemporan...cit, p. 11. In Romanian, “moloh”, n. (scholarly) Symbol of cruelty, greed, rapacity; a person or community which possesses these traits. – From pr. n. Moloch, http://dexonline.ro/definitie/moloh (accessed on 18.08.2013). 4 Michele FILIPPINI, “Tra scienza e senso comune. Dell’ideologia in Gramsci…cit.”, p. 94. 5 Raymond BOUDON, L’ideologia. Origine dei prejudici...cit., p. 36. 1 2 3 180 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 take place a process of change in cultural values, through the disintegration of traditional morals, which could result in the defeat of the political and economic power of the Western world. The key, according to Gramsci (Limbaugh says, a.n.), was to change the manner in which society judged the same type of issues. At the beginning, Gramsci wrote, faith in God needs to be overturned and weakened. Then, those who think that there are some moral principles inspired by God need to be rejected; after this, everything will happen according to the socialists’, relativists’, and materialists’ wishes. Now, Gramsci is not, of course, a household name, not even among the smartest people on earth, dear readers. But please trust me when I say that his name and theories are well known and understood throughout leftist intellectual circles. Leftist think tanks worship at Gramsci’s altar”.1 Of course, as Michele Filippini also shows, Limbaugh attributes to Gramsci ideas that he had never expressed2. Rather, we can talk about a quick and superficial reading of Gramsci’s works, which led to the emergence of these interpreting errors. In Rush’ mind, there was a “culture war” going on in North-American politics,3 which resulted in the adoption of the famous affirmative actions. It is the act which allowed women emancipation and offered the right of tutelage to minorities. However, it is important to understand the origins of this aversion directed against Gramsci, and why he is seen as the ideologist of those power groups which aim to take hold of political power and “change the face” of American institutions through their cultural conquest. In 1989, a conservative think tank entitled Council for Inter-American Security elaborated a document which presented the strategy that the US was to follow in Latin America. It is interesting to notice that in the ‘80s, several intellectuals who gravitated around this think tank had held first rank administrative functions in the Reagan administration, passing from the civil society to the political one, and thus validating Gramsci’s equation, according to which the State = civil society + political society. More precisely, a political state4. Starting from this equation it is visible how Gramsci delimited himself very strictly from Lenin’s views on the state5. If for Lenin, the state is an organ of class domination, whose role is to support one class’s oppression by another class, through the exercise and the imposition of force, in Gramsci’s mind, the state loses this classist and non-democratic connotation. For the Sardinian theorist, power is conquered by the imposition of hegemony. And this does not happen, as in Lenin, by means of a violent revolution. The technique put forth by Gramsci consists in alliances with the subordinate classes and in the creation of a “power of attraction” directed towards the intellectuals. The conclusion brought by Gramsci’s way of envisaging the conquest of power is that the Sardinian theorist has a democratic view of the game played within the political area. Once more, he distances himself from Lenin, who wanted to impose hegemony, seen as the proletariat’s dictatorship, through a movement of force, through a revolution. Rush LIMBAUGH, See, I told you so, Pocket Books, New York, 1993, p. 87. Michele FILIPPINI, Gramsci globale. Guida pratica alle interpretazioni di Gramsci nel mondo, Odoya, Bologna, 2011, p. 146. 3 Rush LIMBAUGH, See, I told you so...cit., p. 88. 4 Antonio GRAMSCI, Quaderni del Carcere...cit., p.764. 5 See note 64, where Lenin believed that “[...] the state is an organ of class domination, an organ for the oppression of a class by another... the state is a special organisation of force, an organisation of violence in order to repress a particular class”. 1 2 181 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 Gramsci becomes a theorist who aims to conquer through legal and judicial methods. This is why, when he analysed the Risorgimento phenomenon, he removed the economic element from the attempt to impose the hegemony of the bourgeois, liberal elite represented by the Action Party. If in Lenin’s case we can talk about the promotion of an anti-system political movement, which aimed to impose its own hegemony by force, in Gramsci’s case, the role of the awareness that should have been reached by the proletariat was doubled by the effort to attract organic intellectuals. Thus, power is conquered organically, we might say, by attracting important parts of the people. This is where Gramsci’s democratic conception about the conquest of power is clearly visible. It is interesting to notice that this democratic vision was less observed by left wing theorists; this particularly important element “needs” to be revealed together with the criticism formulated by the North-American conservative right. When the Council for Inter-American Security analysed the evolution of Marxist ideas in Latin America, its members discussed Gramsci and the contribution that the Sardinian theorist brought to the understanding of the concept of culture and its relationship with power: “The key innovative Marxist theorist who recognised the relationship of the values people hold to the creation of the statist regime was Antonio Gramsci. Gramsci stated that culture, or a society’s sum of values, has an importance much greater than the economy. For Gramsci, it is difficult for the proletariat to attack a democratic regime, but the same is not true in the case of intellectuals. […] Gramsci inferred that, if Marxists were able to create the nation’s prevailing cultural values, then it would be possible to give shape to and control such a regime […], a process which would involve a strong influence on religion, schools, media, and universities. […] According to this pattern, the Marxist movements in Latin America were much more active in intellectual and scientific environments than in the proletarian setting”.1 We notice how Gramsci and his concepts are used to create reading keys, necessary in order to understand the issues faced by the North-American hegemony. It is also worth mentioning that there is no paragraph or idea which could affirm the nondemocratic nature of Gramscian conceptions. Moreover, he analyses a process wherein the main element in the conquest of power is no longer fighting, the army, revolutionary violence or the physical destruction of a class. According to Gramsci, culture becomes the main weapon used to “conquer” institutions, which, in their turn, can maintain their hegemony over the entire society. Bibliography ALTHUSSER, Louis, Per Marx, Editori Riuniti, Roma, 1969. ALTHUSSER, Louis, Sull’ideologia, Dadalo Libri, Bari, 1976. ALTHUSSER, Louis, “Marxismo e umanismo”, Critica marxistă, VIII, 1970, pp. 197-216. ARON, Raymond, L’oppio degli intellecttuali, Cappelli, Milano, 1958. BOBBIO, Norberto, “L’ideologia in Pareto e in Marx”, in Saggi sulla scienza politica in Italia, f.e.1988. 1 L. Frances BOUCHEY (et al.), Santa Fe II: A Strategy for the Nineties, Council for Inter-American Security, Washington, D.C., 1989. 182 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 BOUDON, Raymond, L’ideologia. Origine dei prejudici, Piccola Biblioteca Einaudi, Torino, 1991. BOUCHEY, L. Frances (et al.), Santa Fe II: A strategy for the Nineties, Council for InterAmerican Security, Washington, D.C., 1989. CALABRÒ, Gian Pietro, Antonio Gramsci. La «transizione» politica, Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, Napoli, 1982. CERRONI, Umberto, La cultura della democrazia, Métis editrice, Chieti, 1991. D’ORSI, Angelo, Guida alla storia del pensiero politico, La Nuova Italia Editrice, Firenze, 1995. FILIPPINI, Michele, “Tra scienza e senso comune. Dell’ideologia in Gramsci”, Scienza & Politica, Vol. XXV, No. 47, 2012, pp. 94, 99. FILIPPINI, Michele, Gramsci globale. Guida pratica delle interpretazioni di gramsci nel mondo, Odoya editore, Bologna, 2011. FLORIAN, Radu, Antonio Gramsci, un marxist contemporan, Editura PoliticĖ, Bucure ti, 1982. FREEDEN, Michael, Ideologia, Codice edizioni, Torino, 2008. GENTILE, Francesco, “Morte e trasfigurazione della politica nell’ideologia”, Nuova Antologia, n. 2107, July 1976. GIOIA, Melchiore, Del merito e delle ricompense, Pirotta, Milano, 1822-1823. GRAMSCI, Il nostro Marx 1918-1919 (a cura di Sergio Caprioglio), Einaudi, Torino 1984. GRAMSCI, Antonio, Quaderni del Carcere (a cura di Valentino Gerratana), Einaudi, Torino, 2007. KANT, Immanuel, Critica rațiunii pure, 3rd ed., trans. by Nicolae Bagdasar and Elena Moisuc, Editura IRI, Bucure ti, 1998. LIGUORI, Guido, Sentieri gramsciani, Carocci editore, Roma, 2006. LIMGAUGH, Rush, See, I told you so, Pocket Books, New York, 1993. LUKACS, Gyorghy, Storia e coscienza di classe, Sugar & Co, Milano, 1970. Manheim Karl, Ideologia e utopia, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1965. MARX, Karl, Il capitale (a cura di D. Cantimori), Vol. II, Editori Riunti, Roma 1970. MARX, Karl, Friedrich ENGELS, L’ideologia tedesca, Editori Riuniti, Roma, 1994. MARX, Karl, Friedrich ENGELS, Opere alese în două volume, 3rd ed., Vol. I, Editura PoliticĖ, Bucure ti, 1966. MASTELONE, Salvo, Storia ideologica d’Europa da Sieyès a Marx (1789-1848), Sansoni editore, Firenze, 1984. PARETO, Vilfredo, Tratato di sociologia generale, G. Barbera, 1916. ROSITI, Franco, “Ideologia”, in P. Farneti, (a cura di), Il mondo contemporaneo. Politica e società, Vol. I, La Nuova Italia, Firenze 1979. ROSSI, Ferruccio, Ideologia, Mondadori, Milano, 1978. SHILS, Edward, “The concept and function of ideology”, International Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, Vol. VII, 1986, pp. 66-76. SOREL, George, Considerazioni sulla violenza, prefazione di E. Santarelli con una introduzione di B. Croce alla prima edizione, Laterza, Bari, 1930. STOICA, Gheorghe Lencan, Gramsci, cultura și politica, Editura PoliticĖ, Bucure ti, 1987. ANDRU, Daniel, Reinventarea ideologiei, Editura Institutul European, Ia i, 2009. ANDRU, Daniel, “Ideologia”, in Eugen HUZUM (coord), Concepte și teorii social – politice, Editura Institutul European, Ia i, 2011. 183 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 TOGLIATTI, Palmiro, Appunti preparatori della relazione al I convegno di studi gramsciani, Roma, gennaio 1958. 184 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 ESSAYS Croce e l’Ideologia Liberale Michele PROSPERO “La Sapienza” Università di Roma Abstract: Through this essay, the author invites the social scientists to revisit the theoretical approach of one of the most important theorists of the Italian classical liberalism, Benedetto Croce. The several elements from Croce’s theory here discussed emphasize the conservative character of the Italian liberalism. Keywords: liberalism, State, individual, social unity, political party. La mancanza di una vera e propria cultura liberale di stampo europeo, attenta ai diritti individuali e non ostile alle forme moderne del conflitto, conferisce al liberalismo italiano un marcato orientamento conservatore, poco disponibile alle libertà del singolo. Benedetto Croce, che del liberalismo italiano è l’espressione più autorevole, ha tra i suoi principali autori di riferimento pensatori (Hegel) e concetti (politica di potenza, rigetto dell’atomismo e delle finzioni del parlamentarismo) che con il liberalismo europeo più affinato hanno ben poco a che spartire. Con il suo liberalismo sui generis Croce prende di mira, proprio come Gentile, la concezione atomistica della società che separa drasticamente l’individuo dallo Stato. Questa netta linea divisoria tra lo Stato e l’individuo introduce un deleterio elemento di frizione, un potenziale perturbatore della coesione di cui ha bisogno una autentica unità sociale. Nella requisitoria crociana contro l’atomismo, l’utilitarismo, il materialismo riecheggiano motivi più di stampo conservatore che liberale. In uno scritto del 1912, Croce chiarisce quali sono i suoi bersagli preferiti. A suo giudizio tutte le tradizionali categorie politiche meritano l’oblio. “Aristocrazia, democrazia, conservatorismo, progressismo, liberalismo, socialismo, militarismo sono astrazioni”. Al centro di un più adeguato approccio ai problemi della politica egli colloca il principio della unità sociale. Riallacciandosi a un filone interpretativo attento all’istanza dell’unità e dell’ordine, Croce rifugge da ogni elemento di lacerazione visto come sfida che minaccia di sfaldare il fragile equilibrio sociale. Nei tempi moderni il socialismo si configura come la più temibile minaccia rivolta contro il presupposto della unità sociale. Scrive Croce: “[…] questa coscienza dell’unità sociale, scossa dalla lunga consuetudine della ideologia socialistica, urge, a mio credere, restaurare; e per restaurarla efficacemente, bisogna andare strappando tutte le piccole radici, dalle quali nell’animo nostro può ancora rinascere la mala gramigna di quella ideologia”. 185 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 Prima ancora della guerra civile europea che secondo gli storici revisionisti sarebbe stata inaugurata dalla rivoluzione bolscevica, nel vecchio mondo liberale si sentiva il bisogno impellente di un’operazione di pulizia ideologica che liberasse il campo dalla “mala gramigna” del socialismo. In questo scritto Croce raccomanda di distruggere gli idola tribus del conflitto sociale e di “non darsi troppo pensiero della signora Democrazia e del signor Socialismo”. Mentre nella vecchia Europa il liberalismo aveva già fatto i conti con il processo di democratizzazione convertendosi rapidamente in liberaldemocrazia (in Inghilterra Mill accoglie addirittura istanze fondamentali del socialismo inaugurando una esperienza di socialismo liberale), in Italia il massimo esponente della cultura liberale respinge tanto la democrazia quanto il socialismo. Un nuovo protagonista della vita politica, il partito politico, non trova facile accoglienza nel laboratorio teorico di Croce, prima d’ogni altra cosa preoccupato di sterilizzare ogni disturbatore dell’ordine. Il partito ai suoi occhi rappresenta un elemento di conflitto che indebolisce il bisogno di unità e concordia. L’intero, il tutto non sopportano parti che destrutturano le fondamenta della convivenza in un’età minacciata dalle pretese del volgo. Quello di partito si configura pertanto come “concetto logicamente assurdo e praticamente pernicioso, perché distruttivo della coscienza dell’unità sociale”. Dare organizzazione alle idee e agli interessi di una parte è qualcosa di sospetto nella misura in cui la coscienza dei propri particolari bisogni urta contro la compattezza dell’intero. Da buon pensatore dell’ordine, Croce denuncia nei partiti dei sabotatori dell’unità nazionale. Per questo “la vera azione politica richiede sempre un trarsi fuori dei partiti per affermare, sopra di essi, unicamente la salute della patria”. I cittadini che si organizzano nei partiti compiono un atto dal sapore distruttivo, lanciano un segnale piuttosto esplicito di scarso attaccamento alle superiori prospettive della patria. Per avere una percezione chiara del bene comune occorre superare la realtà dei partiti e affidarsi a momenti esterni rispetto alla cieca lotta delle fazioni. Per Croce i valori della disciplina morale, dell’ordine, della unità, della patria unita e compatta sono superiori a quelli del conflitto, della divisione in partiti, del particolarismo. Si tratta evidentemente di un liberalismo che non apprezzando la positività del conflitto risulta del tutto sguarnito di fronte ad assalti autoritari. Non è un caso che Croce fino al 1925 si proclama favorevole alla prospettiva di uno Stato etico rispetto al quale cadono tutte le manifestazioni particolaristiche e viene ricusato ogni atomismo sociale. Il disegno crociano è quello di uno Stato forte in grado di tenere alti i valori della tradizione patria. Ma ogni senso dello Stato ai suoi occhi rischia di uscire definitivamente di scena in seguito alle manifestazioni di particolarismo e di disgregazione che si sono affacciate con intensità senza precedenti soprattutto con il movimento socialista. Croce si dichiara estremamente preoccupato dinanzi al “processo centrifugo che minacciava non lontana la dissoluzione dell’idea di Stato e di unità sociale a transitorio vantaggio dei singoli individui e dei singoli gruppi sociali”. Rispetto all’appannamento dell’idea di statualità determinata dalla mobilitazione di interessi sociali ristretti, Croce ritiene urgente ricorrere alla esaltazione delle dottrine dello Stato potenza. Rigettando ogni “ideologia dell’astratta giustizia”, deridendo gli “untuosi democratici”, rimarcando persino “la bassezza morale della teoria dello Stato come giustizia”, il filosofo abruzzese approda a una concezione dello Stato che è difficile catalogare come liberale. Croce sottolinea la “moralità della dottrina dello Stato come potenza” e rigetta come formule vuote le teorie contrattualistiche escogitate per la fondazione dell’obbligo politico. Bobbio vede in 186 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 Croce l’incarnazione “dell’ideale politico del perfetto uomo d’ordine”. Dinanzi alle pretese degli individui di far valere i loro particolari interessi si erge la grande potenza dello Stato che deve assicurare coesione sociale. Al pari dello Stato etico gentiliano, anche lo Stato potenza di Croce vede nell’associazionismo una tendenza sovvertitrice irrefrenabile. Il consenso, il contratto non giocano alcun ruolo nella fondazione dell’autorità politica. Il primato della unità sociale sulle forme di organizzazione interindividuale conduce all’annullamento della dimensione stessa dell’individualità. Croce sostiene che l’uomo “non è niente in quanto astratta individualità ed è tutto in quanto concorda col tutto”. Le pagine che il filosofo abruzzese dedica al consenso sono le più lontane da una visione liberale. Egli scrive che “nel più liberale degli Stati come nella più oppressiva delle tirannidi, il consenso c’è sempre, e sempre è forzato, condizionato e mutevole”. Sfugge in questa sua definizione ogni differenza tra istituzioni politiche che suppongono una periodica ricarica consensuale e forme di potere sprovviste di regolari elezioni e di liberi parlamenti. Bobbio ricorda giustamente che anche quando passerà alla esaltazione della religione della libertà in Croce la libertà è un qualcosa di generico, di romantico che “non si può definire per mezzo dei suoi istituti, ossia giuridicamente”. Quando Croce parla del suo liberalismo fa riferimento a qualcosa di vago come “la mia realtà di sentimento e di volontà” e mai a concrete dinamiche istituzionali. Costante nelle varie fasi del suo pensiero è l’avversione profonda per la democrazia. Il democraticismo è per Croce “la tendenza a far pesare più fortemente la massa, il popolo o la plebe”. La pretesa eguaglianza nei diritti individuali postulata dalle dottrine democratiche viene rigettata con sdegno. Per Croce “nemmeno un contratto è possibile tra codesti autarchi, mancando la materia del contrattare, la diversità, fondamento dei reciproci diritti e doveri”. I corollari della dottrina politica crociana sono costituiti da uno scetticismo per l’avanzamento politico della plebe, per il giusnaturalismo. A tutto ciò che richiama la potenza del numero, dinamiche quantitative egli contrappone un liberalismo che coincide con una autentica aristocrazia spirituale. “L’aristocrazia -egli scrive- è la fiamma che tende all’alto, e questa fiamma è l’anima stessa dell’uomo”. Un vero aristocratico sente un distacco profondo verso “codeste signore virtù”: fraternità, eguaglianza, tolleranza. Chi si attiene al valore dell’aristocrazia “disdegna di accomunarsi con coloro che reputa a sé inferiori”. Il disprezzo per il volgo, l’impossibilità di avere forme politiche in comune con gli strati sociali inferiori documentano la ristrettezza di un liberalismo incapace di porsi seriamente il problema dell’integrazione politica delle masse. Per Croce il liberale deve “protestare contro il volgo, satireggiarlo, respingerlo da sé con violenza”. Il sistema democratico che pretende di accorciare il divario tra i ceti sociali e di contemplare una eguaglianza politico-giuridica tra gli individui astrattamente considerati rappresenta una delle forme politiche più abominevoli. La demarcazione netta tra i pochi che governano e i molti che obbediscono va innalzata a invariante dei regimi politici. La lotta tra i partiti, l’intera dialettica parlamentare si configurano come un qualcosa di sospetto, come una sceneggiata. “L’esperienza ci mostra -afferma Croce- che il partito che governa o sgoverna è sempre uno solo e ha il consenso di tutti gli altri, che fanno le finte di opporsi”. Se il consenso è manipolato, l’opposizione è finzione ne deriva che tutti i presupposti istituzionali sui quali poggia il regime liberale sono una grande mistificazione. Tra queste posizioni teoriche di Croce e il fascismo è difficile individuare delle solide linee di demarcazione. 187 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 L’esaltazione della potenza contro le manifestazioni della politica umanistica ferma alla mitologia della persuasione e del consenso ha delle radici così profonde nel liberalismo crociano che l’ammirazione per la violenza squadristica non sembra affatto essere circoscrivibile a uno sviamento congiunturale. Se quella di Gentile è stata dipinta come una “filosofia del manganello” che saluta le virtù terapeutiche di questo insolito strumento di persuasione, quella di Croce può con altrettante buone ragioni essere raffigurata come “filosofia dello scoppolotto” che reclama modi spiccioli per arginare i movimenti antinazionali. Quella dei fascisti è “una pioggia di pugni utilmente e opportunamente somministrata”. In una intervista del 1924 Croce ricorda come un “così grande beneficio la cura a cui il fascismo ha sottoposto l’Italia”. La sua preoccupazione è che una cura così incisiva possa durare troppo poco. Ancora in Politica in nuce il bersaglio vero sono i democratici con le loro insopportabili prediche sulla eguaglianza, sulla libertà e sulla fraternità e non le violenze dei fascisti presentati ancora come “uomini di vivo senso storico e politico divenuti appassionati partigiani della forza”. La loro è sì una forza “grossolanamente intesa” ma non si può pretendere sottigliezza e capacità di distinzione da un movimento che comunque si prende la briga di dare “scappellotti” ai sostenitori delle “forme insulse” della democrazia. Sotto il profilo più strettamente concettuale, Croce (in Politica in nuce del 1925) distingue, sulla base dell’ineliminabile rimando alla forza che in ogni epoca appare come connotato peculiare del politico, la politica dalla morale. Nelle sue pagine riconduce la politica ad agire e quindi, con la sua spinta all’azione volta ad uno scopo esistenziale, alla dimensione della sfera pratica. La politica, come mondo dell’agire vitale, è nient’altro che “azione utile” e la sua sfera è ricompresa nella forma dell’economia, anch’essa assumibile come un agire in vista di un utile immediato o differito. Lo spessore pratico e utilitario proprio dell’agire politico induce Croce a rimarcare il connotato effettuale della politica e quindi a trascurare “lo Stato come complesso di istituzioni o di leggi”. Non che gli apparati istituzionali, le costituzioni formali siano del tutto irrilevanti. Anzi, anche dal punto di vista pratico, le forme contano. Spiega infatti Croce: “i governi che non si fondano su alcun diritto ma sul semplice fatto non mettono radici o le mettono con grande lentezza”. Il diritto, la forma conferiscono durata al potere, ne garantiscono la funzionalità nel tempo. E però occorre guardarsi dai “formalisti giuristi”, dalla loro astratta pedanteria che rimane del tutto estranea al senso della politica come agire. Il valore della legalità, della continuità dell’ordinamento non può condurre ad una vuota considerazione formale. Il culto astratto della forma viene superato in virtù dell’asserzione per cui anche la legge è nient’altro che agire. Croce partecipa al generale processo teorico novecentesco di affrancamento degli studi politici dalla egemonia dell’antica scienza dello Stato d’impronta formalista. “Il concetto di Stato non vale a circoscrivere le azioni politiche tra le altre pratiche e utilitarie”. Non lo Stato con la sua rivendicazione di una separatezza formale “ma le azioni politiche” devono essere poste al centro dell’analisi. “La parola Stato sembra quasi un paradosso verbale, perché richiama la statica in una cerchia come la vita politica che è dinamica”. In questo modo Croce colloca la politica nel terreno onnicomprensivo dell’agire, delle forme di vita e lo sottrae dalle ricostruzioni statiche e normative. La sua lotta contro le scienze dello Stato, in nome dello studio delle azioni utili, spesso procede con asserzioni alquanto generiche: “a rigore, ogni forma di vita è vita statale”. Asserendo che lo Stato è azione, che la legge è anch’essa azione, che le istituzioni sono azione e che 188 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 tutto è insomma vita non si coglie molto del significato reale del politico. La sua ricostruzione d’impronta vitalistica e azionistica del politico rimane di gran lunga alla superficie del fenomeno politico. Non ne coglie né la tragicità novecentesca, né la trama formale-istituzionale-procedurale. La sua attenzione ai distinti non è paragonabile, nel cogliere le radici delle differenze e dei conflitti, alla penetrazione vantata dalle correnti del pluralismo, del comportamentismo. Le stesse definizioni dello Stato offerte in vari luoghi da Croce talvolta configgono tra loro in maniera esplicita. Se lo Stato è nel suo tratto specifico anzitutto forza, potenza (anche il consenso ha diramazioni che affondano nella fenomenologia della forza) è difficile poi impostare una ricognizione della politica e del diritto sulla base della nozione dell’utile (“Lo Stato? Nient’altro che un processo di azioni utilitarie”). E dopo aver escluso, proprio sulla base della categoria dell’utile, non solo il volto effettuale della forza ma anche il profilo etico dello Stato, Croce incontra difficoltà nel distinguere il corredo utile o economico attribuito allo Stato dalle dottrine liberiste e mercatiste. Contro la potenza quale esclusivo fondamento dello Stato Croce invoca l’utile e contro l’economico come destinazione privilegiata dell’ordine politico reclama il soccorso dell’etica (“Lo Stato non è un fatto ma una categoria spirituale”). Lo Stato come azione però non coglie i nodi del politico. L’azionismo di Croce, il suo vitalismo quale emblema di libertà approdano ad asserzioni teoriche che paiono alquanto generiche per essere davvero risolutive: “La libertà, come l’amore, è la vita che vuole espandersi e godere di sé”. La velleità di mediare libertà e autorità, regola e azione, naufraga dinanzi a declinazioni aleatorie della libertà come “gioia del fare”, gioia del vivere. La rivolta contro le teorie troppo edificanti (la mitologia del contratto, dell’eguaglianza, del consenso, dei diritti) sospinge Croce in un vitalismo poco penetrante rispetto alla conformazione degli assetti del potere. Contro Gentile, e il suo culto dello Stato che tutto ingloba in sé e subordina rispetto ad un fine spirituale generale, Croce decurta il connotato etico dello Stato e rimarca il tratto incancellabile della potenza. E contro Einaudi, e la sua mitologia del mercato e della concorrenza perfetta come sinonimi della moderna libertà, rivendica il plusvalore etico del liberalismo. In queste oscillazioni concettuali che sconfinano nell’eclettismo Croce mostra di non esplorare il politico con categorie esaustive. Il tentativo di Croce è quello di distinguere il suo liberalismo sia dallo Stato etico gentiliano sia dal liberismo economico che nel feticcio del mercato esclude il ruolo delle regole, della adozione di un piano. Secondo Croce una “sincera e vivida coscienza liberale deve sostenere provvedimenti e ordinamenti che i teorici dell’astratta economia classificano come socialisti” (Etica e politica). Il concetto di libertà per lui sfugge ad uno stretto canone economico e a qualsiasi impianto istituzionale totalizzante che occulta le distinzioni, le differenze e impone la pretesa autoritaria di “determinare il prezzo delle cose, il giusto prezzo”. L’ordine del mercato è una dimensione contingente rispetto a valori capaci di durare e che però non sono assorbiti per intero dal comparto statuale. La “natura religiosa” del principio liberale lo allontana da ogni culto della proprietà, del mercato, del capitalismo e anche da qualsiasi statolatria. Le istituzioni politiche e sociali sono da Croce subordinate al valore morale della libertà che in quanto tale espelle anche qualsiasi identificazione dello Stato con l’assoluto. Contro il liberista Einaudi, e contro ogni morale a sfondo edonista dei “fanatici liberisti” Croce esalta il liberalismo inteso 189 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 come deposito di valori eterni che trascendono anche la ossatura formale dello Stato contingente e qualsiasi pretesa di riassorbire la distinzione tra pubblico e privato. Le vicende del Novecento sono scrutate da Croce secondo un registro che nella metamorfosi dell’utile nel più radicale vitalismo scorge la matrice originaria dei totalitarismi. La realtà della contraddizione, il lato ineludibile del negativo, l’irruzione imponderabile dell’irrazionale o l’ingresso nel teatro del mondo del momento che Croce chiama della “dis-creazione” spezzano ogni illusione riposta nel progredire lineare dello Spirito, nel culto della storicità integrale come circuito tranquillo di una razionalità sempre progrediente. Negli anni Trenta (in Storia d’Europa nel secolo decimonono, 1932) emerge uno dei profili più interessanti del liberalismo crociano, la vocazione europea. I concetti di libertà, civiltà, razionalità, come frutto di un’opera incessante della coscienza sono recuperati nello spazio politico europeo destinato a superare le fratture e le angustie dei nazionalismi aggressivi. Croce auspica un “processo di unione europea” come efficace antidoto contro la “psicologia dei nazionalismi” che sostiene una spirale regressiva e violenta. Bibliography CROCE, Benedetto, “Politica in nuce”, La Critica, No. 22, 1924. CROCE, Benedetto, Etica e politica, Laterza, Bari, 1931. CROCE, Benedetto, Storia d’Europa nel secolo decimonono, Laterza, Bari, 1932. 190 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 The Process of Democratisation and Social Equality, Inequality. The Old-New Challenge of Politics and Education Sándor KARIKÓ University of Szeged Abstract: Social equality is a primeval and precious concept, a natural historyshaper fortitude, an orphic requirement and impression. Modern (from the new and recent era) politics ceaselessly and directly claims that every person is equal in the social sense. If the state of political and legal equality is confronted by all-time reality, it becomes immediately clear that in everyday life we cannot find social equality, but the gloomy atmosphere of social inequality. This study (presentation) argues that in the contention against social inequality the education for democracy in the short run and directly can only provide little help, however, in a long-term view and indirectly it is able to offer much more. Therefore, from this point of view we can face a negative and positive tendency and effort. Keywords: poverty, equality, inequality, democratisation, law, education, goodness. Social equality is an old, precious idea, a history changing force, a natural, captivating desideratum and feeling. As modern (new-age) politics enunciates it constantly: “from a social point of view, every person is equal.” The various political publications show only a slight difference in phrasing and style, the message (every person is equal and is born free) being the same. I would like to remind you three examples. The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America (1776) proclaims it clearly, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”1. Soon after (1789), the fundamental documental of the Great French Revolution confirms it. “Men are born and remain free and equal in rights”2. Coincidentally, the 1946 French Constitution is based upon this statement, “The Nation guarantees equal treatment to all people, regardless of race or religion”3. Finally, let me cite the 54th article of the new Hungarian Constitution which proclaims, “In the Republic of Hungary, every person has the right to life and human dignity”4.Without going into political discussions, it is clear for everyone that the politically declared forms of social equality raise a restrictive, limiting aspect: the question of equality before the law. When comparing the reality of social 1 The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America (1776. júl. 4.) In: Szöveggyűjtemény az Amerikai Egyesült Államok történetéhez 1620-1880, szerk. Břdy Pál és Urbán Aladár, Dialóg Campus Kiadó, Budapest – Pécs, 2001, p. 112. 2 A Nagy Francia forradalom dokumentumai, Osiris Kiadó, Budapest, 1999, szerk. és ford. Hahmer Péter. quotation from the Declaration of Human and civil rights (La Déclaration des droits de l'Homme et du citoyen), p. 85. 3 Constitutions of Western Europe, 1988, p. 281. 4 Constitution of Hungary, 2011, szept. 1. ÁRBOC Szolgáltató Kft. 2011, p. 12. 191 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 equality with the state of political and juridical equality, one can see that in everyday life we do not come across social equality, but we have to face the gloomy reality of inequality. That reality and theory interfere is not a surprise, but philosophy has achieved great progresses in uncovering the reasons behind it, which I intend to briefly mention. Jean-Jacques Rousseau made the first steps in the understanding of the issue of social equality and inequality. Rousseau presented a brand new aspect for the masses: do not initiate from political (juridical) inequality but from social inequality. When disserting on the inequality between people, he comes to the conclusion, that “I conceive that there are two kinds of inequality among the human species; one, which I call natural or physical, because it is established by nature, and consists in a difference of age, health, bodily strength, and the qualities of the mind or of the soul; and another, which may be called moral or political inequality[…]”1. What we can notice is Rousseau’s recognition of the fact that inequality – like it or not - lives side by side with political inequality. He sees property as the deepest cause of this situation. “The first man – continues the philosopher - who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying This is mine, and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows, “Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody2. Pointing out the naivety of the writer of the “Social Contract” is a commonplace. We know that the appearance of property and its glorious versus inglorious history is way more complicated than Rousseau thought. Yet, it is an unrefuted fact to this day that the very existence of property was a key factor in the shaping of history, for example in the creation of political inequality, which engenders remarkably controversial social conflicts. Marx, following Rousseau’s steps, reaches even deeper considerations. In his famous “Critique of the Gotha Program” he emphasises the idea that “the right of the producers is proportional to the labour they supply; the equality consists in the fact that measurement is made with an equal standard, labour. But one man is superior to another physically, or mentally, and supplies more labour in the same time […] everyone is only a worker like everyone else; but it tacitly recognises unequal individual endowment, and thus productive capacity, as a natural privilege”3. As we know, today it is not really popular to refer to Marx, as we tend to forget the works of Ferenc Třkei, the not so long ago deceased Hungarian philosopher. Třkei was the first Hungarian philosopher who responded to the above text from Marx. After interpreting the text of Marx carefully, he comes to a brave conclusion. If we only analyse man from one point of view, as a labourer, and we ignore all the other aspects, then we can see that equality is effectively inverted. “The basis of ‘equal rights’ is that it sees humans only as labourers, and that everybody receives goods according to his labour. But humans are individuals therefore they have different qualities and abilities, so 1 Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU, ”Értekezés az emberek közötti egyenlřtlenség eredetérřl”, in Értekezések filozófiai levelek. Magyar Helikon, Budapest, 1978, p. 83. 2 Ibidem, p. 122. 3 Karl MARX, A gothai program kritikája, Kossuth Könyvkiadó, Budapest, 1975, p.24. 192 és South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 ‘equal rights’ means that every right is the right of inequality”1. We confront ourselves with the uncanny reality that law itself brought about only the right of inequality, in other words, instead of equality and justice we only got social inequality and injustice. This brief philosophical passage warns us that social inequality – whether we notice it or not - is a necessary phenomenon which we probably will have to live with for another few decades. Or otherwise stated, inequality leads the way to equality. We have to check social work along with political, juridical and philosophical theories. Iván Szelényi’s review of the ‘Social cross-section’ sociological release mentions that “a question so important to Hungarian sociology such as social inequality is the most precious variety of social studies”2. Therefore we have a rich social study heritage. János Ladányi and Iván Szelényi present the question in this manner in their monumental discourse: is there any chance “to tail down social inequality – as some leftwing intellectuals are still hoping for? This seems rather unlikely”3. The pessimistic answer of the authors can be traced back to 1996, and the happenings of the last decade and a half unfortunately only amplified social inequality. The country’s economic state is inadequate, but the greatest problem of all is that even to this day the political forces that could bring about a new social contract are too feeble. And this is so not because of the separation of powers, but because of the reduction of inequality. It is unquestionable that to reduce material inequality between people, the current governments have to find (and support) health resources. Today, this has no political reality and the phrasing of the title of the above authors’ book might not be a coincidence: it is about chance and its creation. What they hope for is that the government will at least give the reduction of inequality a chance. But nowadays it seems that even this hope is about to fade away. As Paszkál Kiss, a famous editor in chief, has put it forth, “many believe that chance of equality is an illusion, particularly in education”4. Zsuzsa Ferge paints an even darker picture of the current situation. The poverty researcher’s words are quite depressing: “most of the world’s countries try to achieve some kind of minimal wage for their peoples, thus limiting the growing poverty and inequality. We are moving in the opposite direction”5. Inequality is especially prominent in education and education policy. Ferenc Gazsó’s works are essential in this domain. Gazsó (among others) says that in the first decade of the new millennium over one-third of the population of Hungary will live on or below the minimal wage. Under these circumstances, “the costs of schooling can only be weighed down on the parents minimally. (...) In the next few years, no significant change will happen regarding the minimisation of inequality in education. (...) Lower classes (...) do not bear enough pressure to potentially get their interests forward”6. 1 Ferenc TŘKEI, “A társadalmi formák marxista elméletének néhány kérdése”, Kossuth Könyvkiadó, Budapest, 1977, p. 402. 2 Iván SZELÉNYI, “Társadalmi metszetek. Recenzió” , Magyar Tudomány, 2007/8, pp. 1104-1105. 3 János LADÁNYI, Iván SZELÉNYI, “Vázlat az ’esélyteremtř állam’ elméletéhez”, Egyenlőtlenségek, redisztribúció, szociálpolitika, Új Mandátum Kiadó, Budapest, 2010, p. 668. 4 Paszkál KISS, Elřszó, Felsőoktatási Műhely, 2012/2, p. 5. 5 Zsuzsa FERGE, “A gyermekcsaládok helyzetének változása Magyarországon a válság éveiben”, Esély, 2012/6, p. 24. 6 Ferenc GAZSÓ, ”Társadalmi struktúra és iskolarendszer”, in Társadalmi metszetek. szerk. Kovách Imre. Napvilág Kiadó, Budapest, 2006, pp. 207 and 224. 193 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 Allow me to underline that even though years have gone since, and some really important changes have happened, the inequality in education has not decreased, but rather seems to be unstoppably rising. Let me cite another recent discourse. The transformation of higher education, says Zsuzsanna Veroszta, is “plagued by scepticism and anxiety, (…) for example the decay of “university material”, the decline of the quality of teaching, but also people seem to forget the problem of equality-inequality”1. Yet, it is clear that the increasing inequality causes problems in education. Not mentioning that progress like this does not match our education policy and ideology. Pedagogy and education policy can do so much for strengthening democratisation. The sphere of education has to be turned into a national strategic branch (investment). It is so strange to me, and I think it is because of the Hungarian mentality, that the elevation of education policy to a higher strategic level is acknowledged by so many educated people (CEOs, economists, sociologists, philosophers, teachers), yet the country itself is not capable of turning this into an actual program. One can easily find out that the reason behind this phenomenon is that there is no political force behind it in Hungary, at least as yet. Taking into account the present state of education in our country, Hungary, we need a national collaboration (with international help) in order to detect how exactly education could have an effect on the relation of equality and inequality. Could education subdue the difference between people, and if yes, how, on what basis? I say, that democratisation (first of all education), in the short run and directly, can have too much a negative effect, and in the long run and indirectly, it can have too great a positive effect. We can see that a negative-positive tendency is shaping. a) It seems that Hungarian educators watch bashfully the necessity of connecting the arguments of educators and political interest. School leaders, education researchers and educators exhibit some kind of coyness concerning the representation of their interest. Their position regarding the greater influence of politics in education is also weak. György Csepeli speaks about the lack of cooperation of people and the distortion of social rivalry. Going deeper into this topic, he comes to the bitter conclusion, which truth could hardly challenge. “If many people live well without having to work hard for it, or do not have to achieve anything, then crisis is in existence. When inequality rises, only unfair competition is possible”2. Let us now juxtapose Csepeli’s harsh criticism with another contemporary Hungarian sociologist’s work. Zsuzsa Ferge says in one of her most recent interviews, “We rightly think in 2010 that the government will equalise the standards of public schools in a way that it would help social integration and soothe the inequality between children. (…) Instead the new public education programme drifts towards obsequiousness and the limitation of free thinking”3. Let me ask it openly: is it possible to create social equality with an education policy based on obsequiousness? Do the powers think they do a great job when they follow an education programme that is to produce “well-behaved”, “well-set”, always positive regiments of pupils? Should the conformist student be the ideal again? The explanation resides in the 1 Zsuzsanna VEROSZTA, ”A tömegoktatás elitképzésének értékei”, Felsőoktatási Műhely, 2011/2, p. 65. The author notes that in spite of every unflattering process the decision of UNESCO of 1998 describes the importance and support of social equality. 2 Márta FÜLÖP és György CSEPELI beszélgetése, “Az együttműködésrřl és a versengésrřl”, Kritika, 2013. Január – Február, pp.21-22. 3 Zsuzsa FERGE, “A szolgalelkűség rendszere”, 168 Óra, 2013, márc. 21. Az interjút készítette: Sándor Zsuzsanna, pp. 22-23. 194 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 fact that a whole cluster of discourses proved that in the “Kádár-era” conformism prevailed. Are not modern politics and governments trying to level citizens with obsequiousness? I think inequality between people should not be equalised by an old ideological education policy. We need an education programme that should hold back the notion of obsequiousness and give free space for self-sufficient, independent personalities. Nonetheless I know that encouraging children towards independent thinking is highly tiresome, and requires intense effort. b) How can education represent a positive alternative, and foster education values? Probably it can support aims like this with many tools and proposals. I would like to emphasise one really important aspect. Pedagogy can make miracles happen in every social sphere (economic, political, cultural, and educational) in its own way if it declares and shows the highest importance of education. I am not afraid of the expression: education has to make the “soul” of tutoring clear. But what is this mysterious essence? I do not want to spend too much time on this question. I would only like to mention one education philosopher. According to Richard Pring, the main purpose of education is “to complete humans; and educators job is to make people good or a better person”1. If we like to summarise the purpose, the “sacred mission” of education, we could say, is that education is nothing else but righteousness. I cannot emphasise enough the concept of righteousness2. Righteousness as an education norm exists regardless of time and space. Milán Füst, a 20th century writer, describes the meaning of education so beautifully that I must quote the whole text which summarises his view on education: “No matter what they preach in school, what the priest, your mother, your father tells you. […] No matter if you decide in childhood that you will be good, selfless and clean… life will come and you will soon forget it – you will cheat, steal, live a carnal life. […] In your thoughts you might be “idealistic”, but the rest, the “outside world” goes on its own… You are shy, full of doubts […] and you remember the teaching you got from your mother, and how you drank naïve idealism from your mother’s milk. But life – unfortunately – is not like this. You think your mother did not know how life is? She knew, yet she wanted to give you her better self, […] she believed that her child would be able to live a clean life, yet he should not live a different life. And as soon as you have a child of your own you will be reluctant to teach him your other, complicated history of life; to show him the bitterness… and you will introduce him to life as Moses showed the Promised Land to the hopeful”.3 This quotation shows clearly that education is the pursuit of goodness, and humanity is operating through it so that to make a person noble. Still, we have to face it every day that the beautiful idealism of education enters into contradiction with the cruel reality, the fallibility of human beings. But even after all the difficulties, hope still lives in Richard PRING, Philosophy of Education, Continuum, London, New York, 2004, p. 22. Sándor KARIKÓ, A nevelésfilozófia alapjairól, SZEK JGYF Kiadó, Szeged, 2009, pp. 20-21. Earlier, I mentioned in some of my studies Milán Füst’s amazing discovery. Eg. Nevelés – mi végre? Iskolakultúra, 2010/ április 84-90. A bátorító nevelés nevelésfilozófiai megalapozásához. Módszertani Közlemények, 2008/3, pp. 101-106. 3 Milán FÜST, Napló I, Magvetř Könyvkiadó, Budapest, 1976, pp. 178-179. 1 2 195 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 us to perpetuate the need of goodness in our children. Today, most people smile at the principle of living a clean, honest, selfless life. They think it is an unnecessary doctrine, an ethical sermon that is not of great help. Based on Milán Füst’s anecdote I can only say, and the democrats can think about this, that removing the idea of righteousness from the history of humankind would be completely impossible. Don’t forget that humans are creatures that are always thirsty for goodness! And I think that the idea of righteousness is more than a simple belief, it implies a steadfast commitment. Righteousness is not just a beautiful idea; it is a real moving force. It is an educational doctrine that can be found in everyday life, in reality too. Do not be afraid to say there are – thank God - decent people living amongst us. I would like to mention György Lukács, the outstanding 20th century Hungarian philosopher’s splendid realisation, who stays underappreciated to this day (just like Milán Füst): “When goodness becomes real in us, Paradise has arisen. (...) Abandoning righteousness is compulsory for ethics, but righteousness is miracle and mercy; it is “obsession.” (...) In the souls of those who are good, all the psychological arguments are gone, everything has a reason and everything has a consequence”1. We know it since Descartes, that the common sense as the most democratic benefit of the world is naturally equal in every person2. We have to recognise because of György Lukács that the virtue of righteousness is not equal, not universal, nor essential for every human being. It is more like a state of forgiveness that is given not for everyone, a particular offer of fate, which can charm the educator and its surroundings by its indescribable nature. The idea of righteousness and its importance in education is disputable: not everybody wants to acknowledge it. But foraging for it is a noble thing. I know it is not much, but this is the least we can do. Or what we should do. Bibliography A Nagy Francia forradalom dokumentumai. Osiris Kiadó, Budapest, 1999. szerk. és ford. Hahmer Péter. DESCARTES, René, Értekezés a módszerrřl. Matura, Ikon Kiadó, Budapest, 1992. Elsř rész. FERGE, Zsuzsa, “A gyermekcsaládok helyzetének változása Magyarországon a válság éveiben”, Esély, 2012/6. FERGE, Zsuzsa, “A szolgalelkűség rendszere”, 168 Óra, 2013, márc. 21. Az interjút készítette: Sándor Zsuzsanna. FÜLÖP, Márta és Csepeli György beszélgetése, “Az együttműködésrřl és a versengésrřl”, Kritika, Január – Február 2013. FÜST, Milán, Napló I, Magvetř Könyvkiadó, Budapest, 1976. GAZSÓ, Ferenc, “Társadalmi struktúra és iskolarendszer”, in Társadalmi metszetek. szerk. Kovách Imre. Napvilág Kiadó, Budapest, 2006. KARIKÓ, Sándor, A nevelésfilozófia alapjairól. SZEK JGYF Kiadó, Szeged, 2009. 1 György LUKÁCS, A lelki szegénységrřl. In. Ifjúkori Művek. Magvetř Kiadó, Budapest, 1977. Note: The Hungarian edition of the book entitled “A lélek és formák” does not contain this essay, but the later English edition does. It is interesting that a contemporary South Korean philosopher has recently pointed out this conception of Lukács: Kwak, Duckk-Joo, “Practising Philosophy, the Practice of Education”, Journal of Philosophy, 2010, Vol.. 44, No. 1, pp. 540, 541, 543. 2 René DESCARTES, Értekezés a módszerről, Matura, Ikon Kiadó, Budapest, 1992, p. 15, Elsř rész. 196 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 KISS, Paszkál, Elřszó. Felsřoktatási Műhely, 2012/2. LADÁNYI, János, Iván SZELÉNYI, “Vázlat az ’esélyteremtř állam’ elméletéhez”, in Egyenlřtlenségek, redisztribúció, szociálpolitika. Új Mandátum Kiadó, Budapest, 2010. LUKÁCS, György, “A lelki szegénységrřl”, in Ifjúkori Művek. Magvetř Kiadó, Budapest, 1977. MARX, Karl, A gothai program kritikája, Kossuth Könyvkiadó, Budapest, 1975. Nyugat-Európa Alkotmányai. szerk. Dr. Kovács István. Közgazdasági és Jogi Könyvkiadó, Budapest, 1988. PRING, Richard, Philosophy of Education, Continuum, London, New York, 2004. ROUSSEAU, Jean Jacques, “Értekezés az emberek közötti egyenlřtlenség eredetérřl”, in Értekezések és filozófiai levelek, Magyar Helikon, Budapest, 1978. SZELÉNYI, Iván, “Társadalmi metszetek. Recenzió”, Magyar Tudomány, 2007/8. “The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America (1776. júl. 4.)”, in Szöveggyűjtemény az Amerikai Egyesült Államok történetéhez 1620-1880. szerk. Břdy Pál és Urbán Aladár. Dialóg Campus Kiadó, Budapest – Pécs, 2001. Constitution of Hungary, 2011, szept. 1. ÁRBOC Szolgáltató Kft. 2011. TŘKEI, Ferenc, “A társadalmi formák marxista elméletének néhány kérdése”, Kossuth Könyvkiadó, Budapest, 1977. VEROSZTA, Zsuzsanna, “A tömegoktatás elitképzésének értékei”, Felsřoktatási Műhely, 2011/2. 197 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 BOOK REVIEWS Bogdan ŞTEF NESCU, Postcommunism. Postcolonialism. Siblings of Subalternity, University of Bucharest Publishing House, Bucharest, 2013, 226 pp. Postcommunism. Postcolonialism. Siblings of Subalternity starts from the assumption that Romanian intellectuals with a background in postcolonial and British/American cultural studies hold an uncertain epistemic status generated by their positioning between Western and Eastern European axes of identification. This critical ambivalence triggers the author’s need to clarify the stance of a postcolonial scholar within a postcommunist context. Bogdan ŞtefĖnescu’s study offers a comparative discussion of the postcolonial and postcommunist paradigms. Hence, his book highlights the relevance of a theoretical perspective that considers the structural analogies between the two fields of research. The author’s central claim is that Soviet communism and Western colonialism were related phenomena notwithstanding their contextual specificities, minutely investigated by Bogdan ŞtefĖnescu. The author supports the dialogue between postcommunist and postcolonial studies, explaining how postcommunist might benefit from the theoretical tools devised by the field of postcolonial studies, while postcolonial studies might refine their framework by examining the complexities of postcommunism. The book is made of four chapters that discuss the perceived incompatibility between postcolonialism and postcommunism, varieties of colonialism, the relation between 198 (post)modernity/ism, (post)colonial and (post)communist paradigms and discursive strategies of identity reconstruction in Romanian literature. The first chapter is entitled “Claiming the Critical Territory. The Case for an Analogy Between Postcommunism and Postcolonialism”. In this section, the author investigates the general reluctance expressed by postcolonial scholars and postcommunist intellectuals to accept the possibility of a dialogue between their theoretical positions. The strong point of the discussion is that it goes beyond simply stating the existence of this clash and it provides explanations regarding the gap between the two fields of research. Thus, the author presents the ideological incompatibility between the anti-capitalist orientation of postcolonialism and the anti-Marxist values promoted by the postcommunist discourse. Being interested in the Romanian case, the author provides examples of contemporary Romanian academics who avoid the discussion of postcommunism in postcolonial terms. Hence, an interesting element of this chapter is its focus on the paradox of the Romanian postcommunist situation. The author registers that Romanian native elites educated in the West after 1989 have adopted a post-modern/poststructuralist agenda whose embrace of Marxism clashes with the traditional liberal idiom upheld by the postcommunist discourse. The author’s original solution to this dilemma is a contextual understanding of South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 ideological paradigms that conceptualizes postcolonialism and postcommunism as structurally homologous contexts of occurrence. The second chapter entitled “Colonial Complications” thoroughly investigates the conceptual foundation of the colonial discourse, in order to employ it as a theoretical approach to a comparative discussion of postcolonialism and postcommunism. At this point, Bogdan ŞtefĖnescu presents a comprehensive analysis of concepts related to colonial realities, attempting to highlight the complexity of terms such as “colony”, “coloniality”, subcategories of “colonisation” (“reverse colonisation”, “double colonisation”, “internal/inner colonisation”, “self-colonisation”) and imperialism. Considering that colonialism, generally understood as modern Western colonialism, overlooks the episode of Soviet domination in Eastern Europe, Bodgan ŞtefĖnescu aims to formulate a more adequate definition of coloniality that would account for both postcolonialism and postcommunism. Therefore, the original point of this section is the listing of colonial attributes that enable the discussion of postcommunism and postcolonialism as analogous intervals of historical traumas. In the last part of this chapter, the author justifies his adoption of subjective constructivism as a theoretical position that analyzes how people create discursive images of their communal identity. The third chapter is entitled “Thinking in Pairs. Problems in the Comparative Study of Postcolonialism and Postcommunism”. In the first part of this section, the author discusses the inherent asymmetries of a comparative approach generated by the marginalisation of postcommunist studies in the West. An original aspect of this discussion is the author’s outlook on Eastern European identity, as a case of triadic negotiation between the West, the Soviet Union and the “Orient”. The central part of this chapter offers an accurate theoretical description and comparison between modernity and postmodernity and their adjacent concepts – “(post)modern”, (post)modernisation”,“(post)modernism” – in relation with coloniality, postcoloniality, communism and postcommunism. This section illustrates’ the author’s ability to disentangle conceptual differences and intersections in order to provide adequate tools for a comparative approach to postcommunism and postcolonialism. In the last chapter, entitled “Discursive Strategies for Coping with Cultural Trauma in Romanian Literature”, the author investigates varieties of identity discourses generated in the Romanian space. Reaching the conclusion that most analyses of post-communist Romania conceptualize Romanian realities in a binary manner (pro-Western liberalism vs. pro-Eastern traditionalism), Bogdan ŞtefĖnescu opts for ideological critical pluralism in order to transcend the trap of dualistic interpretations. Adapting Hayden White’s tropological analysis of ideological discourse types, the author discusses four types of nationalist discourses present in Romanian literature: metaphoric-anarchist nationalism, antithetic-radical nationalism, analogical-liberal nationalism and ironicconservative nationalism. The value of this chapter lies in the fact that the author supports his theoretical claims with close – readings of texts by Romanian authors from different periods ranging from the 17th century to postcommunist times. In the last section of the chapter, the author demonstrates how Romanian postcommunist reconstructions rely on the symbolism of the void which is also 199 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 employed in colonial and postcolonial representations. More specifically, this part of the book analyzes values of the void as a compensating mechanism, illustrated by artistic and literary Romanian creations. Postcommunism. Postcolonialism. Siblings of Subalternity stands out as a bold conceptual venture into the new field of postcommunist studies. By supporting a generic analogy between postcolonialism and postcommunism, the author attempts to shed light on a delicate critical topic in order to clarify the uncertain status of Romanian academics trained in cultural studies, yet living in a postcommunist context. Bogdan ŞtefĖnescu’s research is well-documented and it enters 200 constructive dialogues with Western and East-European analysts of postcolonial and postcommunist processes. The author displays logical vigor and precision in his statements, offering a clear presentation of complex theoretical discourses with a focus on specific historical contexts. While the last chapter provides an application of the author’s theoretical claims, it can also be considered a starting point for future research in the field of Romanian postcommunist identities. Adriana Elena STOICAN University of South-East Europe Lumina South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 Daniel ANDRU, Sorin BOCANCEA (coord.) Mass-media i democra ția în România postcomunist [Mass Media and Democracy in Postcommunist Romania], Institutul European, Ia i, 2013, 592 pp. The birth of post-communist Romanian democracy is insolubly connected to the emergence of a form of media not necessarily free, nevertheless plural. One remembers the abundance of images and discourses regarding the 1989 Revolution and the intensity surrounding particular topics of this debate such as terrorists, Moscow’s involvement in the events, Ceau escu’s trial, the role played by the army and the former Securitate, and so on. Furthermore, one also remembers the ‘mineriade’ and the mediatic distortion they were and still are subjected to. After 1989, media and democracy became intertwined in a delicate and complicated relationship which is put under close scrutiny in Daniel andru and Sorin Bocancea’s book Mass-media și democrația în România postcomunistă. The massive work, prefaced by Emil Hurezeanu and postfaced by Doru Tompea, consists in thirty-two chapters written by Adrian-Paul Iliescu, George Bondor, Sabin DrĖgulin, Daniel andru, Ovidiu MihĖiuc, Ana-Maria AmbrosĖ, Alina Hurubean, Larisa Demeter & Dan DrugĖ, Cristian Bocancea, Constantin Ila , Georgeta Condur, Liviu Antonesei, Doru Pop, Sorin Bocancea, Tudor Pitulac, Ion Dur, Ioan MilicĖ, Sorin Cristian Semeniuc, Livia Durac, Andrei Cucu, Adrian Marius Tompea, Teodora Tompea, Ivona Burduja, Antonio Momoc, Iulian Micu, Ramona Ursu, Grigore Cartianu, Liviu Iolu, Ovidiu imonca, Lavinia Betea, RĖzvan Chiru Ė and CĖlin Ciobotari. All chapters are clearly written and carefully documented, each treating particular or general topics of the interplay between media and democracy in contemporary Romania. However, due to the limited amount of space, this review will approach only some of the chapters, the (limited) aim being to provide the reader with a general picture of the book. The first contribution to the volume, belonging to Adrian-Paul Iliescu, insists on pluralism as the central value not only of democracy, but of modernity itself1. But the main media discourse strives to impose a ‘dictatorship of the unique truth’, based on stereotypes and prejudices and therefore totally opposed to the core values of democracy. Marginalised social categories, such as the Roma people, appear on the news programs as potential or proven felons; after 2007, the year of Romania’s admission in the European Union, the Roma people started to be presented as the ones who ‘ruin Romania’s image abroad’ (p. 35). Another myth present in Romanian media as a ‘manifest truth’ is that of privatisation. Fake cleavages like private property against public (and inefficient) property, reformism against statism or freedom loving liberals against nostalgic and anti-progress communists were thus mediatically created and enforced upon a disoriented and manipulated public opinion. Paradoxically, in the 1990s, it was former communists recycled in aggressive capitalists who profited the most from the favourable trend of abusive and ineffective privatisation: they bought at ridiculously 1 See in this regard John B. THOMPSON, Media și modernitatea. O teorie socială a mass-media, Antet, Bucure ti, 2000. 201 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 low prices segments of industry which they managed before 1989 as members of the Romanian Communist Party, but could not completely exploit, dismember or sell on their own at huge prices. As long as Romanian media will not develop the exercise of tolerating interpretative diversity within the public space, Iliescu concludes, it will not develop a healthy and functional relation with democracy. Sadly, for the time being, ‘Mass-media plays today, as it previously played, a damaging role in avoiding the key questions and masking the unmasking answers’ (p. 39). Next, in a Habermasian key, George Bondor connects the media failures with the expansion of what Habermas called ‘late capitalism’, an ideological and material phenomenon based on consumerism as a way of disposing citizens from their critical and participatory tools in the on-going process of constituting democracy. Here, the main danger lies in equating free media (and democracy, for that matter) with the free market, an interpretative perversion which highly advantages huge media trusts. As John Keane points out in his appreciable essay Mass media și democrația, this kind of acute market competition between mediatic actors results into monopolies by forcing media trusts to become ‘market leaders’ while at the same time considerably lowering the quality of the information they provide by amplifying the spectacular and appealing to the prejudices of the public instead of tackling them. Moreover, this kind of dynamics increases the risks and uncertainties of potential investors regarding the communication market, thus making it less attractive and indirectly potentiating the concentration tendencies which further distance media from democracy. Another negative consequence of this outcome is 202 excessive advertising (trying to reverse the unattractiveness of the communication market for investors and to find new sources of revenue) which rather annoys and alienates the public, the inevitable censorship exerted by media monopolies controlling the market and a growing inequality between the well and the poorly informed. The well informed have usually stable jobs and revenues and therefore obtain a privileged access to the media and nowadays to the Internet as well. The less informed, on the other hand, are at the mercy of tabloids and dubious TV channels, while their Internet access is scarce or inexistent. Keane’s conclusion is poignant: ‘The liberal affirmation that the market facilitates the freedom of individual option is doubtful. Actually, unrestricted market competition tends to narrow the options of some citizens, especially those of minorities and of temporary or fluctuant majorities. Radio and television stations are aware that in the competition for the public’s affection the best strategy to increase audience is to offer large interest broadcasts. This leads to an insufficient variety of program schedules and the useless copying of the types of programs. The entertainment offer is becoming weaker, repetitive and predictable rather than necessary. The audience levels unavoidably rule. But audience levels do not fully represent the opinion of ethnic and regional minorities, of gays and lesbians, of ecologists, of the elder, of socialists and other minorities’1. Audience levels, under the aegis of free market, lead to populism, censorship, an increase in stereotypes and social inequality – not to democracy. They also lead, Sabin DrĖgulin warns us, to a ‘depletion of 1 John KEANE, Mass media și democrația, Ia i, Institutul European, 2000, pp. 66-83. South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 understanding’: Sartori’s thesis of ‘imbecilisation through television’ is used by DrĖgulin to prove that, in Romania, democracy is becoming more and more videocracy and politics videopolitics, a pernicious process which corrodes the foundation of democracy consisting in criticism, implication and the capacity of formulating and implementing, through legal means, alternatives to official policies. Daniel andru reaches a similar conclusion when contesting Romanian media’s aspiration to portrait itself as objective, a strategy aiming to consolidate the manipulation of the public opinion. Another interesting chapter, signed by Ana-Maria AmbrosĖ, tracks the constitution of a dichotomy which, instead of shedding light upon important public matters, antagonised the public space: that of the journalists which remained loyal, in a form or another, to the former communist regime, and the ‘anticommunist’ journalists. No decent dialogue was possible between these two groups, each benefiting from political support. Consequently, the idea of ‘public interest’ was dismantled and associated with the small-minded interest of a group or another. Other chapters insist on the slow and incomplete coagulation of a journalistic deontology, an understandable yet not excusable outcome if we take into account the fact that Romanian media has yet to enter the age of maturity in the democratic era. The role of intellectuals is also analysed, in relation both to democracy and media. During the last years, the interventions of intellectuals in the public space experienced an increase of politicisation. Some of them, like Pierre Bourdieu masterfully observed, are confirmed as intellectuals first of all by the media, not by their recognised efforts within their particular scientific fields1. So did the interventions of journalists: media started to be confounded often with politics, a result Doru Pop named, by paraphrasing Julien Benda, ‘the betrayal of journalists’. To return to the question asked in the title of this review, how does media influence democracy in contemporary Romania? Taking into account the general tone of the book, the answer is in a negative way. Media is transforming itself from a means of communication into an end, from a source of information into a source of interpretation(s). In this case, is the label ‘watchdog of democracy’ still appropriated? Not if the watchdog tries to replace democracy. However, democracy cannot exist in the absence of a free media. There is no perfect democracy or perfect media: their interplay is subjected to public will. Sadly, in times of economic, social and political crisis, public will is fragmented into millions of particular wills and priorities, an opportunity for democracy to become less democratic and for media to become less objective. Democracy and media should balance and consolidate one another, not try to replace one another: their interaction can be made, as I have already mentioned, pluriperspectival. But for that to happen, a stronger and more articulate social feedback is needed. And, to achieve that feedback, more democracy (states protecting public interest) is needed, not a freer market. Emanuel COPILA West University of Timișoara 1 Pierre BOURDIEU, Despre televiziune, ART, Bucure ti, 2007, p. 105. 203 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 Florin GRECU, Construcţia unui partid unic: Frontul Renaşterii Naţionale [The Construction of a Single-Party: the National Renaissance Front], Editura EnciclopedicĖ, Bucureşti, 2012, 274 pp. The book The Construction of a Single-party: the National Renaissance Front is an outstanding academic work. The culmination of an impressive scientific research and archival work of almost a decade, the book manages to address political scientists and at the same time to be a very enjoyable reading for the general public. The author Florin Grecu is a graduate of the Faculty of Political Science, from the undergraduate to the doctoral levels – a title acquired in 2011 with a thesis whose subject is found in this paper: the single-party of the royal dictatorship of King Carol II – the National Renaissance Front (FRN). The novelty and importance of this case study comes from both the way the subject is treated, and from the quality and volume of primary data examined and presented. This paper is a superb archival work, with an abundance of primary sources, both from Central Historical National Archives and from personal material belonging to leading personalities involved in Romanian politics and the FRN at the highest level. The book is a successful interdisciplinary effort, a blend of political science and history. The exhaustive treatment of the subject is remarkable, pursuing the structure and ideology of the party, at central and local level, the leadership and the simple member, explainig how the single-party was built and accepted by society and the political class. The FRN is a poorly popularised and studied Romanian aspect, although it represents a political experiment way 204 before PCR, but with quite similar political and administrative aims. Comparative politics demanded a comparison with similar phenomena of the era, such as the single-party systems of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, with the difference, dully noted by the author, that in Romania the authoritarian regime created the party, and not the other way around. But obviously these more famous examples were a model to emulate for the regime of Carol II, as shown by the reports of Major Teofil Sidorovici, the commander of the youth organisation created by the regime – The Sentinel of the Motherland. The main thesis of the book is that the entire regime and state party were militarised, colonels and generals taking over the party and the administrative apparatus – the fundamentals of these organisations! Carol II himself was the chief commandor of the army and of the FRN; while senior founding members of FRN were army generals. Even the head of the National Guard was an active general, Peter Georgescu. The entire administration, at central and local level, from the royal resident to the humblest clerk, was populated with either active or retired generals in the Romanian army. The FRN was an actual political barrack, manned by apolitical petty officers. The scientific research is equally impressive: it addresses all possible aspects of the life and work of single-party: member recruitment, relationship with former parties, elite selection, propaganda, filling administrative and executive positions, relationships with key state South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 institutions (Church, army), constitutional changes and legislative work, relationship with professional organisations (guilds), functioning of the youth organisation and the paramilitary arm of the party, the party leaders’ political fate after the abdication of Carol II and, most interestingly, under communism. It is significant that most party members came from the National Peasant Party, which the author identifies, correctly, as a sign of the special relationship that Carol II had with this party, whose role in the return of the king in 1930 was major. However, it is noteworthy that the FRN really wanted to attract as many young people as possible, in order to create a real break with the old party system, compromised by the political crisis following the elections of December 1937. Moreover, Florin Grecu highlights the depth of the ideological and propagandistic claims of the party, beyond the image of shallow organisation, formally submitted to the desires of the king. Chapter IV treats the parliamentary life under the royal dictatorship, describes how the 1939 election and campaign were prepared and organised, with case studies on two administrative regions. As throughout the whole book, the author provides a wealth of statistics and names of politicians, active in the studied period. Another very interesting chapter is that dealing with the political and ideological phenomenon in the royal dictatorship, while addressing the causes of the intellectual interwar noninvolvement in politics – the excessive reliance on state jobs – and the FRN’s failure to fulfill its original policy of opening its doors and that of the administration to the young, as the majority of officials opportunistically switched to FRN, at both central and local level, superior or inferior. Numerous case studies convey important information and analysis, being relevant and useful for actors like the National Guard, the Sentinel of the Motherland, decentralised administrative organisation of Romania. Florin Grecu’s book is an impressive and exhaustive research of this important phenomenon of Romanian political science – the first single-party in our history. Drago COSMESCU Independent Researcher 205 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 Mario TELÒ, Giulia SANDRI, Luca TOMINI (eds.), L’état de la démocratie en Italie [The State of Democracy in Italy], Éditions de L’Universite de Bruxelles, Bruxelles, 2013, 176 pp. In the present version, are included the papers of the international colloquy “Italian Transition in the European Framework” which took place in Brussels, December 2010. The study is divided into 11 chapters, taking into account the part dedicated to the general conclusions. The first chapter, “The political system, civil society and institutions in Italy: the quality of democracy”, is essential for the comprehension of the general frame of the study. Italian economy and politics are a continuous turmoil. Corruption, lawsuits concerning the political leaders, spread of clientelistic practices, economical crisis, European and international decline of the country are all factors determining contemporary Italy. For these reasons, re-evaluating the quality of Italian democracy represents a necessary endeavour. In this context, through a comparative and interdisciplinary approach, the study intends to analyze the political, economical and the societal evolution in order to clarify whether Italy can be considered as so-called ‘deviant case’ among the European countries. The recurrent changes and crises that have marked Italy must be interpreted from a historical point of view. The quick and brutal formation of the Italian state is the key to comprehend the nature and function of nowadays Italian political system. The debates upon Italian ‘incomplete’ democracy and upon a longlasting transition are wide spread in the declamations about Italian political system ever since the end of the Second World War. 206 The partitocracy indicates a failed modernization. The absence of political reforms led to a process of individualization of politics based on populist practices that generated the deterioration of Italian democracy and a weak function of state institutions. As Rhodes remarked that “despite the promises of the new, so-called «Second Republic» launched in the early 1990s, Italy remains the least well-governed country in Europe”1. Therefore, re-evaluation of recent evolution of Italian democracy in this difficult context of general political instability represents the main scope of this multidisciplinary study. The book is structured in two main parts: the first one proposes a theoretical and general methodological frame to analyse the quality of Italian democracy in European context. Donald Sassoon’s historical view is concerned to the Italian ‘anomaly’. The longitudinal perspective is important to comprehend the changes of Italian democracy. Analysing democratic performance involves researching the two phenomena characterising the democracy in Italy: the presence of the organised crime and economical backwardness. A chapter is dedicated to the process of European integration. Mario Telò’s text focuses upon the evolution of Italian democracy in the European context. Telò underlines the ambivalence of European ideology in Italian politics, the different views of Italian governments 1 Martin RHODES and Martin BULL, Crisis and Transition in Italian Politics, Routledge, London and New York, 2008. South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 and the continuous dispute between proEuropean approaches and the Eurosceptic perspectives. Another analysis is concerned on the internal and external factors of metamorphose of democracy from the first transition period (1947-1992) to the Second Republic (1994-2010). Marc Lazar analyses the concept of ‘anomaly’ from a comparative perspective. After examining a series of political indicators, the author concludes that Italy is a particular case in the general trend of democratic changes in Western Europe. We remark further Leonardo Morlino’s article where – analysing the evolution of Italian democratic model during the transition from the first to the second republic – the author leads to the conclusion that transition has not influenced significantly the consensual political model characterising Italy in the ’60. The second part of the book proposes a multidisciplinary perspective which refines the level of analysis, starting with the impact of recent economic crisis upon the political system in a general way, the relations between executive power and law institutions, and the consequences of migrations and so on. The connexions between these indicators and the quality of democracy are also analysed at length. Gianfranco Pasquino takes into account the relation between the executive and the legislative powers and the consequences of different interpretations of political actors upon the institutional model. Particularly, there are examined the reasons and the consequences of different attempts of constitutional reform in the ’90. Andreea Manzella approaches the constitutional process in European context, and Schmidt proposes a comparative analysis upon the politico/institutional impact of the economic crisis. Contemporary Italy crosses a major economic crisis. Just a few statistical data are relevant: the economic competitiveness is one of the lowest in Europe, just above those recorded in Greece and Romania1; the indicator of financial fraud is very high, setting Italy not far off Romania and Belarus; the indicator that measures how commercial and industrial contracts are followed situates the country in the proximity of Albania and Pakistan. In this context, Schmidt examines the characteristics of Italian economy in regard to different models of European capitalism. In the same time, there are appraised state’s role in the general economical level of Italian economy and the importance, as well as the efficiency of political institutions and public politics. There are four types of capitalism in Europe: three models are specific to its Western part and one is characteristic to Central and Eastern Europe. Between the free market economy (Anglo-Saxon model of capitalism) and a dependent market economy which is directly influenced by the state (as in Central and Eastern Europe), Italy’s economy defines itself as a market economy ruled by the state (along with France, Spain and other Mediterranean countries). State interference in economy can be either good or bad. For example, after the Second World War, the French state had successfully managed the economic crises in the country. Quite the opposite, in Italy, the dysfunctions of political institutions are reflected in a weak economic performance. The economic crisis has a higher effect on Italian society compared to others countries in Southern Europe 1 World Competitiveness Year, 2009. 207 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 and to the average of European Union as a whole1. Daniela Piana analyses the role and mutual relations between the main actors of the entire political system: law system and political actors. Finally, Tiziana Caponio expounds the relations between the civil society and the migration processes in the last three decades. As economies are decreasing and opportunities for overqualified young people are getting lower, the migration politics ought to take into account the problems recently faced, as in 2009, the first ten nationalities living on the Italian territory summed 4,235,059 persons, whereas in 1998, there were only 991,678 persons. The final conclusions are not a corollary of this negative statistics, as one of the main ideas rising at the end of this multidisciplinary enquiry is the fact that Italy has a certain specificity but it does not constitute neither a ‘deviant case’ nor a form of ‘modern orientalism’. The importance of the study consists in the complexity of the analysis and the multidisciplinary approach (political sciences, sociology, history and economics). Therefore, the study proves to be compulsory to all the researchers in the field of social sciences. Moreover, given the recent debates in Romanian society where the problem of corruption, economical backwardness, clientelism and endemic non-development are recurrent themes in the public space, the present study represents a pertinent scientific reading for better understanding national political phenomena and their In 2009 GDP has diminished wtih 5 per cent in Italy compared to 3,7 in Spain an 2,6 in France and 4,2 in European Union. The public debt expressed as percentage is of 115,8 per cent compared to 53,2 in Spain, 77,6% in France and 73,6% in European Union. 1 208 (dis)similarities with the ones specific to other European countries. Aurelian GIUG L University of South-East Europe Lumina South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 EVENT “Magic exists” or the Triumph of Cultural Diplomacy Undoubtedly, the motto of this year’s George Enescu international festival, held in Bucharest and other important cities of Romania, makes ancillary reference to the wholesome effects of music in gradating the international relational system. It is certainly a truism according to which the language of music is a universal one, meant to convey everlasting values to a world experiencing unprecedented dynamics, and which risks – to the benefit of minimalist cultures – to lose the essential. There are several systematic approaches as regards international relations which operate in contemporary scientific literature, among which let us cite only two of them: “hard power” and “soft power”. The American political scientist Joseph Nye is known as the creator of the theoretical fundamentals of “soft power”, which he defined as “the capacity to persuade and influence through culture, values and ideas and not through the force of military weapons. In a global society, globalisation engenders a high level of interconnection between the world’s governments and societies and implicitly conduces to the necessity to cooperate on a new and different scale, a scale which is fostered by cultural diplomacy”. On the other hand, let us also quote Professor Marius Vacarelu, who said, in the same vein, “I would define soft power as a set of measures, ideas, and concepts which are used by a state to maximise its influence and image in the eyes of its own citizens, but also among other states without having recourse to military or economic force”. The main way to promote soft power resides in the identity between what a state believes it is and what it is perceived to be. The external method is to disseminate films, visual arts, music with the vehicles each and every state has at its disposal: cultural institutes, festivals, international partnerships in various fields of science, art, etc. Consequently, even if this kind of international relations is as old as the world itself, cultural diplomacy, as a subcategory of classical diplomacy, is developing today systematically and its goal is to establish, broaden and consolidate the relations with other states through culture, art, education, and science. Activities pertaining to cultural diplomacy imply an outward projection process of the system of cultural values (in our case our historical patrimony) of a state, and its promotion at the level of bi- and multilateral relations, tells us Professor Lucian Jora of the Babes–Bolyai University of Cluj. With this in mind, let us mention just a few of the festival’s hallmarks. The George Enescu Festival (also known as George Enescu Festival and International Competition), held in honour of the celebrated Romanian composer George Enescu is the most outstanding classical music festival and classical international competition hosted by Romania and one of the biggest in Eastern Europe. Enescu's close friend and one of the most renowned conductors of Europe, George Georgescu, organised the first festival in 1958, merely three years after Enescu had passed away. Among the famous foreign personalities that were invited to this first edition of the festival were performers such as Yehudi Menuhin, David Oistrah, Halina Czerny-Stefanka, Nadia Boulanger, 209 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 Monique Haas, Iacov Zak or Claudio Arrau, and conductors such as Sir John Barbirolli, Carlo Felice Cillario or Carlo Zecchi. On September 22 of the same year, George Enescu’s masterpiece “Oedipe” was premiered in Romania, with young baritone David Ohanesian in the leading role. Equally magic editions of the festival were organised in 1958, 1961, 1964, 1967, 1970, 1973, 1976, 1979, 1981, 1985, 1988, 1991, 1995, 1998, 2001, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2011, and 2013. Held between the 1st and the 28th of September, 2013, and having the great Ioan Holender as artistic director of this 21st edition, the International Festival "George Enescu" was the most important international cultural event held in Bucharest and many other major cities of Romania, and offered us the chance to introduce our country to the world's most elitist cultural circuit. The festival offered a unique cultural mix which highlighted Enescu’s and other famous composers’ works, like Richard Wagner, Giuseppe Verdi and Benjamin Britten (all three being commemorated this year), alongside Mahler, Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Elgar, Bach, Schubert, Debussy, etc. Among the most important personalities present on the Festival scene we shall cite the conductors Daniel Barenboim, Antonio Papano, Neville Marriner, Mariss Jansons, Paavo Jarvi, and breath taking interprets such as Radu Lupu, Murray Perahia, Pinchas Zuckerman, Christian Zacharias, Maxim Vengerov, Evgeny Kissin, Hilary Hahn, Boris Berezovsky, Victoria Mullova, Vadim Repin, Emmanuel Ax, or orchestras such as Royal Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Staatskapelle Berlin, Academia Santa Cecilia di Roma, or Saint Martin in the Fields, etc. The 2013 edition is by far the richest and most glamorous of all the 21 editions of the festival. One of the premieres of this edition is the transformation of Bucharest into a magical space, a capital of creativity, music and plastic arts, open to everyone and meant to exhibit our cultural heritage and the joy and creative spirit of the Romanians. This edition’s program was worthy of this kind of international events, reinforcing Romania's position as host of one of the most important music festivals in the world. And this year’s edition of the international Festival George Enescu has entirely fulfilled its mission of “ambassador” of the Romanian cultural identity in the world thanks to Enescu’s creation, interpreted by the greatest symphonic orchestras of the moment, inscribing Bucharest in the calendar of musical events along with the reputed festivals of Lucerne or Salzburg – and all this in an extraordinary contrast with the worldwide circulated image of Romanians and Romania. Filip STANCIU University of South-East Europe Lumina 210 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 SIGNALS RECENTLY PUBLISHED Lee TREPANIER, Political Symbols in Russian History. Church, State, and the Quest for Order and Justice, Lexington Books, 2013. Political Symbols in Russian History is one of the few works that presents an analytical and comprehensive account of Russian history and politics between the years of 988 to 2005. From Kievan Rus to Putin's Russia, this book traces the development, evolution, and impact that political symbols have had on Russian society. By using Eric Vogelin's "new science of politics" as the human search for order and justice, Dr. Lee Trepanier provides a fresh and unique approach to the studies of political culture and civil society. For those interested in Russian politics and intellectual history, Political Symbols offers the most up-to-date scholarship on such political symbols and social institutions like the Russian Orthodox Church and State. This book presents an innovative approach to understanding symbols in the search for order and justice in Russian history. Emanuel COPILAŞ, Geneza leninismului romantic. O perspectiva teoretica asupra orientarii internationale a comunismului romanesc 1948-1989, Institutul European, Iaşi, 2013. This book examines the international orientation of Communist Romania, assuming as a working hypothesis the claim that the romantic Leninism was the sui generis ideology of the Romanian communism. An important contribution of the paper is the analysis of the Romania's foreign policy during the communist regime, including the Ceausescu era, in terms of specific theories of international relations. Insisting on the ideological aspects of thought and behavior in Romanian communism abroad and on their connections with the internal orientation of the regime, the author argues that the theory of international socio-constructivism is most appropriate for deciphering the international politics of Romania during the communist period. 211 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 Sabrina P. RAMET, The Three Yugoslavias. State-Building and Legitimation, 1918-2005, Indiana University Press, 2013. The War of Yugoslav Succession of 1991–1995 convinced many that interethnic violence was endemic to politics in Yugoslavia and that the Yugoslav meltdown had occurred because of ancient hatreds. In this thematic history of Yugoslavia in the 20th century, Sabrina P. Ramet demonstrates that, on the contrary, the instability of the three 20th-century Yugoslav states—the interwar kingdom (1918–1941), socialist Yugoslavia (1945–1991), and the rump Yugoslav state created in 1992, consisting of Serbia and Montenegro—can be attributed to the failure of succeeding governments to establish the rule of law and political legitimacy. Ramet places emphasis on the failure of the state-building project and the absence of political legitimation, rather than on ineluctable or abstract historical forces. Denis KOZLOV, The Readers of Novyi Mir. Coming to Terms with the Stalinist Past, Harvard University Press, 2013. In the wake of Stalin’s death in 1953, the Soviet Union entered a period of relative openness known as the Thaw. Soviet citizens took advantage of the new opportunities to meditate on the nation’s turbulent history, from the Bolshevik Revolution, to the Terror, to World War II. Perhaps the most influential of these conversations took place in and around Novyi mir (New World), the most respected literary journal in the country. In The Readers of Novyi Mir, Denis Kozlov shows how the dialogue between literature and readers during the Thaw transformed the intellectual life and political landscape of the Soviet Union. Powerful texts by writers like Solzhenitsyn, Pasternak, and Ehrenburg led thousands of Novyi mir’s readers to reassess their lives, entrenched beliefs, and dearly held values, and to confront the USSR’s history of political violence and social upheaval. And the readers spoke back. Victims and perpetrators alike wrote letters to the journal, reexamining their own actions and bearing witness to the tragedies of the previous decades. Kozlov’s insightful treatment of these confessions, found in Russian archives, and his careful reading of the major writings of the period force today’s readers to rethink common assumptions about how the Soviet people interpreted their country’s violent past. The letters reveal widespread awareness of the Terror and that literary discussion of its legacy was central to public life during the late Soviet decades. By tracing the intellectual journey of Novyi mir’s readers, Kozlov illuminates how minds change, even in a closed society. 212 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 Vanessa WILLIAMSON, Theda SKOCPOL, The Tea Party: Remaking of Republican Conservatism, Oxford University Press, 2013. A lot has been written about the Tea Party, much from journalists and commentators. Williamson and Skocpol add a welcome scholarly point of view, giving a nuanced portrait of a very complex modern political phenomenon. The Tea Party, according to Williamson and Skocpol, is in part the result of grassroots activism, part top-down policy entrepreneurship, and part modern media promotion. This book unearths many of the institutional dimensions of the Tea Party movement that help explain how it grew so quickly – 1,000 Tea Party groups formed in just the initial period – and grew so powerful – millions of dollars coalesced to help fund, train, and mobilize supporters and candidates. The electoral successes in the 2010 elections and subsequent policy victories in state tax, budget, and voting policy are the most obvious legacy to date. Karolina S. FOLLIS, Building Fortress Europe. The Polish-Ukrainian Frontier, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013. Since the Schengen Agreement in 1985, European states have worked together to create a territory free of internal borders and with heavily policed external boundaries. In 2004 those boundaries shifted east as the EU expanded to include eight postsocialist countries—including Poland but excluding neighboring Ukraine. Through an analysis of their shared frontier, Building Fortress Europe provides an ethnographic examination of the human, social, and political consequences of developing a specialized, targeted, and legally advanced border regime in the enlarged EU. Based on fieldwork conducted with border guards, officials, and migrants shuttling between Poland and Ukraine as well as extensive archival research, Building Fortress Europe shows how people in the two countries are adjusting to living on opposite sides of a new divide. Anthropologist Karolina S. Follis argues that the policing of economic migrants and asylum seekers is caught between the contradictory imperatives of the European Union's border security, economic needs of member states, and their declared commitment to human rights. The ethnography explores the lives of migrants, and their patterns of mobility, as framed by these contradictions. It suggests that only a political effort to address these tensions will lead to the creation of fairer and more humane border policies. 213 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 David MARSH, Europe's Deadlock: How the Euro Crisis Could Be Solved - And Why It Won't Happen, Yale University Press, 2013. In this short, fiercely argued book, David Marsh explains how five years of continuous crisis management not only have failed to resolve the Eurozone’s problems but have actually made things worse. While austerity-wracked southern states descend into misery and resentment, creditor countries - led by Germany fear that they will be forced to subsidize their weaker brethren indefinitely. Constructive dialogue has collapsed as European decision making descends into terrified paralysis, and the potential paths out of the impasse are blocked by indecision and incompetence at the top. As voters in Greece and Italy rebel against externally imposed hardship, and the sums needed to bail out failed economies reach ever more staggering proportions, the contradictions at the heart of the European project are becoming more and more obvious. Joseph NYE, Presidential Leadership and the Creation of the American Era, Princeton University Press, 2013. This book examines the foreign policy decisions of the presidents who presided over the most critical phases of America's rise to world primacy in the twentieth century, and assesses the effectiveness and ethics of their choices. Joseph Nye reveals how some presidents tried with varying success to forge a new international order while others sought to manage America's existing position. Taking readers from Theodore Roosevelt's bid to insert America into the global balance of power to George H. W. Bush's Gulf War in the early 1990s, Nye compares how Roosevelt, William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson responded to America's growing power and failed in their attempts to create a new order. He looks at Franklin D. Roosevelt's efforts to escape isolationism before World War II, and at Harry Truman's successful transformation of Roosevelt's grand strategy into a permanent overseas presence of American troops at the dawn of the Cold War. He describes Dwight Eisenhower's crucial role in consolidating containment, and compares the roles of Ronald Reagan and Bush in ending the Cold War and establishing the unipolar world in which American power reached its zenith. The book shows how transformational presidents like Wilson and Reagan changed how America sees the world, but argues that transactional presidents like Eisenhower and the elder Bush were sometimes more effective and ethical. It also draws important lessons for today's uncertain world, in which presidential decision making is more critical than ever. 214 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS Lejla BALIĆ Assistant Lecturer at the Law Faculty of the University of Sarajevo. Published papers: “Status, Perspectives and Possibilities for Amending the Dayton Constitution” (coauthor: Midhat Izmirlija), in Eight Years of Dayton BiH: New Vision for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Fondacija Heinrich Boell, Sarajevo, 2003; “Federalism in Multicultural and Multinational Politics: the Case of B&H”, Federalism, Constitutionalism and Good Governance in Multicultural Societies, Institut du Fédéralisme, Fribourg, 2005; “Princip parlamentarne nepodudarnosti – osvrt na status poslanika i delegata Parlamentarne skupštine Bosne i Hercegovine” (The Principle of Parliamentary Incompatibility – A Review of the Status of Members and Delegates of Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina), Godišnjak Pravnog fakulteta, Sarajevo, 2011; “Pravni režim komitologije nakon Lisabonskog ugovora” (The Legal Regime for Comitology after the Lisbon Treaty), Godišnjak Pravnog fakulteta, Sarajevo, 2012. Emanuel COPILA Ph.D. Assistant Professor at the Political Science Department, West University of Timi oara. He is the author of the book Geneza leninismului romantic. O perspectivă teoretică asupra orientării internaționale a comunismului românesc, 1948-1989, (Genesis of Romantic Leninism. A Theoretical Perspective over the International Orientation of Romanian Communism, 1948-1989), Institutul European, Ia i, 2012. He has published scientific articles in journals such as: East European Politics and Societies, Sfera Politicii, Studia Europaea, Revista de Stiințe Politice, Revista Română de Geografie Politică, Impact Strategic, Geopolitica, Annales Universitatis Apulensis Series Historica, Anuarul Institutului de Istorie “George Barițiu” Series Historica, Valahian Journal of Historical Studies, Romanian Review of International Studies, Political Studies Forum, Geographica Timisensis, Colloquium Politicum, Colocviu Strategic. Major interest fields: the theory of International Relations, the political ideologies, the political history, theories of totalitarianism. Drago COSMESCU He holds a Ph.D. in Political Sciences, from the University of Bucharest, after a Master in Political Sciences at the Faculty of Political Sciences, following majors in political sciences, as well as International Economic Relations (at the Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest). The Ph.D. thesis, coordinated by Professor Teodor Mele canu, is entitled “Endogenous and exogenous factors in the political transition. Towards a new theory of regime change”. Previously, he has taught classes on comparative politics, at the Faculty of Political Sciences, namely “Comparative Democratisation” and “Typology of non-democratic regimes”. Recent publication: “Democracy and the Authoritarian Tendencies: the influence of the political regime on the societies in transition”, ISPAIM - Monitor Strategic, No. 1-2, 2012, pp. 91-101; “The Institutional Design of Democracy”, South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 2, 2013, pp. 40-58. 215 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 Ioana CRISTEA (DR GULIN) B.A. at the Faculty of History, University of Bucharest (1998), M.A. at the Faculty of History and Geography, Hyperion University of Bucharest (2010). Currently, she is Ph.D at candidate at the Faculty of Political Science, University of Bucharest, and Erasmus fellow at the Faculty of Political Science, “Aldo Moro” University of Bari. She published several articles, studies and book reviews in Sfera Politicii and Cogito (BDI journals). She also attented several national and international conferences. Dragoş DRAGOMAN Ph.D. in Sociology, lecturer with the Department of Political Science, “Lucian Blaga” University of Sibiu. His research interests include social capital and political participation, ethnicity and nationalism, democracy and democratization. Recent publications: Capital social şi valori democratice în România, Editura Institutul European, Iaşi, 2010; Gestiunea politicilor publice teritoriale şi integrare europeană. Politici culturale, sociale şi de sănătate în Franťa şi în România (coord., with Dan-Alexandru Popescu), Editura UniversitĖťii ”Lucian Blaga”, Sibiu, 2010; “Populism, autoritarism şi valori democratice în opinia publicĖ din România”, in Sergiu Gherghina, Sergiu Mişcoiu (eds.), Partide şi personalităťi populiste în România postcomunistă, Editura Institutul European, Iaşi, 2010, pp. 267-207; “Partide regionale şi democraťie localĖ în România”, in Sergiu Gherghina (ed.), Voturi şi politici. Dinamica partidelor româneşti în ultimele două decenii, Editura Institutul European, Iaşi, 2011, pp. 319-345. Aurelian GIUG L B.A. in Geography (1998), M.A. (2008) and Ph.D. (2011) in Political Science – University of Bucharest, Associate Researcher at the School of Geographical Sciences – University of Bristol (2010), associated lecturer at “Ovidius” University of Constanťa, Faculty of History and Political Sciences (2012-2013). Recent publications: Geografia electoralĖ a Dobrogei postcomuniste: 1992-2012, Editura Fundaťiei pentru Studii Europene, Cluj-Napoca, 2013; “Alegeri generale în România sau confirmarea teoriei periferiei politice”, Sfera Politicii, Vol. 20, No. 2, pp. 51-65, 2013 (with Ionu Ciobanu); “Democratic musical chairs? Romania’s Post-1989 Electoral Geography”, Space and Polity, Vol. 15, pp. 43-61, 2011 (with Ron Johnston & tefan Constantinescu). He is also the author of several articles in Cultura (since 2009). Gustavo GOZZI Is full professor of “History of Political Thought” and of “Human Rights and History of International Law” at the School of Political Sciences of the University of Bologna. He is also Director of the Master in “Human Rights, Migrations and Development” and is a member of the Interdepartmental Centre for Research in the History, Philosophy and Sociology of Law, and in Legal Informatics (CIRSFID) – University of Bologna. He is the director of the series “Democracies, Rights, Constitutions”, Il Mulino, Bologna. Among his works, Democrazia e diritti. Germania dallo Stato di diritto alla democrazia costituzionale, Laterza, Roma, 1999; Diritti e civiltà. Storia e filosofia del diritto internazionale, Il Mulino, Bologna, 2010. 216 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 Florin GRECU Ph.D., M.A. and B.A. in Political Sciences at the University of Bucharest. He is Ph.D. Lecturer of Political Sciences at Hyperion University, Bucharest. Recent publications: Construcťia unui partid unic. Frontul Renaşterii Naťionale, Editura EnciclopedicĖ, Bucureşti, 2012; “Campania electoralĖ din mai 1939: mecanisme, proceduri i comportament electoral”, Sfera Politicii, No. 169, 2012, pp. 134-144; “Regimul i principiile Constitu iei de la 1938”, Sfera Politicii, No. 172, 2012, pp. 7082; “The Authoritarian Constitution versus the National Renaissance Front”, SouthEast European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 2, 2013, pp. 13-30. Antoine HEEMERYCK He is Senior Lecturer in urban sociology, urban anthropology and comparative sociology at the University “Spiru Haret” (Bucharest) – Faculty of Sociology and Psychology & Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism. He is also associate researcher at the Unité mixte de recherche “Developement and societies” (Université Paris I – Panthéon - Sorbonne). His main research interest lies in globalisation, civil society and the role of NGO as an ideological actor. Recent book: L'importation démocratique en Roumanie: Une perspective anthropologiqe sur la construction d'une société post-dictatoriale. L’Harmattan, Paris, 2010. Midhat IZMIRLIJA M.A., Assistant Lecturer at the Law Faculty of the University of Sarajevo. Publications: “Status, Perspectives and Possibilities for Amending the Dayton Constitution” (with Lejla Balić), in Eight Years of Dayton BiH: New Vision for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Fondacija Heinrich Boell, Sarajevo, 2003; “Komentar Zakona o zabrani diskriminacije sa objašnjenjima i pregledom prakse u uporednom pravu” (Antidiscrimination Law Commentary with Practise in Comparative Law) (with Faris Vehabović, Adnan Kadribašić), Centar za ljudska prava, Univerziteta u Sarajevu, Sarajevo, 2010; Human Rights in Bosnia and Herzegovina 2011: legal provisions, practice and international human rights standards in Bosnia and Herzegovina with public opinion survey (ed.), Human Rights Centre, University of Sarajevo, Sarajevo, 2012. Sándor KARIKÓ He is a professor of philosophy at the University of Szeged. He was habilitated at the University of Debrecen, in 2008. His research areas are: ontology of the 19th and 20th centuries, especially the philosophy of Georg Lukács and furthermore applied philosophy (themes: conformity, nonconformity and youth). He is the author of more than hundred articles and three monographs (Conformity as Opportunism Attitude. On Fundamental Question of the Conformity-research, 1995; Conformity and Education, 2005, second edition – 2008; Fundaments of Philosophy of Education, 2010, second edition – 2011). He is an editor of some philosophical books (among which: Risk Society and Responsibility, 2010; Crisis and Communication, 2012; Teachers in the focus, 2012). He is a secretary of the internationally acknowledged Lukács-Circle of Szeged and he is a founding, secretary, member of the Hungarian Society for Applied Philosophy. 217 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 Alexandru MATEI Ph.D. in Contemporary French Literature at École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales from Paris and at the University of Bucharest (2007), with a thesis on Jean Echenoz; Research Fellow at the New Europe College in Bucharest (2013-2014); Postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for the Study of the Image (CESI) in Bucharest (2010-2013); Member of the Romanian Association for General and Comparative Literature; Member of “Heterotopos” (Centre of Literary Studies on picaresque literature and narratives) at University of Bucharest; French Literature lecturer at University of South-East Europe Lumina from Bucharest (since 2013). Published books: Jean Echenoz et la distance intérieure (L’Harmattan, 2012), Mormântul comunismului românesc [The Grave of Romanian Communism] (IBU Publishing, 2011), Ultimele zile din viaťa Literaturii: enorm şi insignifiant în literatura franceză contemporană [At the End of Literature: Enormous and Insignificant in Contemporary French Literature] (Editura Cartea RomâneascĖ, 2008) (the National Prize of Romanian Association for General and Comparative Literature in 2009). He also published papers in Romanian, French and English in several collective volumes. He published many articles in the realm of literary theory, French literature and the history of Romanian television. Florin-Ciprian MITREA Ph.D. in Political Sciences at the University of Bucharest, with the doctoral thesis entitled “Intellectuals in totalitarianism. Cultural Foundations of the Polish Critique of Communism (1945 – 1989)”; B.A. (2000) and M.A. (2002) at the Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Bucharest; studies and academic research at the Jagiellonian University of Cracow and at the University La Sapienza of Rome. Presently, he is Lecturer at the University of South-East Europe Lumina (Department of International Relations and European Studies), Bucharest. He published several scientific articles in journals such as: Sfera Politicii, Revista de Ştiinťe Politice şi Relaťii Internaťionale a Academiei Române, Romanoslavica. Recenlty, he published “Intellectuals and Civil Society. The Polish Case”, South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 1, pp. 96-111; “Constitutional Reform and Political Regime in Interwar Portugal. A Challenge for Political Theory”, South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 2, pp. 122-136. He and Sabin DrĖgulin have supervised the volume entitled The Mediterranean Model and the Extended Black Sea Region. Political, Economic and Cultural Confluences (Ars Docendi, Bucure ti, 2013). Jasmin MUJANOVIĆ Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at York University in Toronto, Canada, working on the topic of participatory democratic alternatives in BosniaHerzegovina. Peer-reviewed publications: “Reclaiming the Political in Bosnia: A Critique of the Legal-Rational Nightmare of Contemporary Bosnian Statehood”, Theory in Action, Vol. 6, No. 2; chapters (forthcoming) in Hip-Hop in the East of Europe, Indiana University Press and It's the End of the World as We Know It? Snapshots of the Crisis, Austerity, and the Movements Against, AK Press. Several commentaries have also appeared in Balkan Insight, TransConflict, The New Left Project, and ZNet. 218 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 Roxana OLTEANU B.A. candidate in Security Studies at the Faculty of Political Science, University of Bucharest, and former intern at CNSAS and IICCMER. She followed the courses European Security and Defence Policy and Law of Armed Conflict (National Defence University “Carol I”, Bucharest) and Jean Monnet Module on European Integration (Center of Euro-Atlantic Studies of the University of Bucharest). Author of “Contemporary Conflicts and Asymetric Threats. The Dynamics and the Implications of the Terrorist Activity in Africa” (International Conference 9/11. Ten Years After, Romanian Diplomatic Institute, 2011) and “Evoluťia Relaťiilor Transatlantice dupĖ RĖzboiul Rece. O perspectivĖ asupra rolului şi redefinirii NATO în context contemporan” (article about to be published). Her fields of interest are: the European and transatlantic institutions of security and the theories of nationalism. Michele PROSPERO Ph.D. in Philosophy at University La Sapienza of Rome; Associate Professor at the Faculty of Political Science, Sociology and Sciences of Communications (University La Sapienza of Rome). Principal publications: La politica postclassica, (Taviano : Lit. Graphosette), 1986; Politica e vita buona, Euroma La Goliardica, Roma, 1996; Storia delle istituzioni in Italia, Editori Riuniti, Roma, 1998; La politica moderna, Carocci, Roma, 2001; Politica e società globale, Laterza, Roma & Bari, 2004; Alle origini del laico, Franco Angeli, Milano, 2006; Filosofia del diritto di proprietà, Franco Angeli, Milano, 2009; Hans Kelsen. Normativismo e diritto privato, Franco Angeli, Milano, 2012. Gelu SAB U Ph.D. in Philosophy at the University of Bucharest; lecturer at „Hyperion” University (Faculty of Journalism), Bucharest. Fields of interest: Philosophy of religion, Religious dogmas and doctrines, Political philosophy, Religious and political modern ideologies. Published studies: “Church and State in Orient and Occident. The two cities and the conflict between the two powers”, Studia Universitatis Babeș-Bolyai. Theologia Graeco-Catholica Vardaniensis, Vol. LV, No. 1, 2010, pp. 173-192; “On created and increated in (Pseudo-)Dionysius the Areopagite and the neo-platonic tradition”, Scholé. Independent Review of Philosophy, No. 2, 2011, pp. 5-20; “Religion and modernity. Instruments of ideologizing the religious discourse”, Cogito. Multidisciplinary Research Journal, Vol. IV, No. 4, 2012, pp. 113-132; “Democracy against Nationalism. The A.C. Popovici Case”, South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 1, pp. 111130. Selami Ahmet SALGÜR Ph.D. in Sociology at the University of Bucharest; M.A. at the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Studies, University of Bucharest; B.A. in Educational Sciences at Middle East Technical University (METU), Ankara. He was an international teacher for seventeen years, director of an international school for five years. He participated in many seminars and conferences all over the world. Recent article: “Need of Intercultural Dialogue between Black Sea Countries”, South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 1, pp. 189-201. 219 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 Lavinia STAN She is an Associate Professor of Political Science at St. Francis Xavier University (Canada). Her publications include the Encyclopaedia of Transitional Justice and Transitional Justice in Post-Communist Romania (Cambridge University Press, 2013); Church, State and Democracy in Expanding Europe (Oxford University Press, 2011), Transitional Justice in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union (Routledge, 2009), Religion and Politics in Post-Communist Romania (Oxford University Press, 2007), the National Report on Romania for the European Commission Directorate-General for Justice, Freedom and Security, and numerous scholarly articles. The Vice-President of the Society for Romanian Studies, she served as member of the Scientific Council of the Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes and the Memory of Communist Exile, member of the Romanian National Council for the Recognition of University Titles, Degrees and Certificates, and member of the Club of Rome. Filip STANCIU Ph.D. in Sciences of Education, Al. I. Cuza University of Iaşi (2000); graduated from the Faculty of History, University of Bucharest (1981); certified in “The management of educational systems, International Institute for Educational Planning”, UNESCO, Paris, 1996; Associate Professor and Rector of the University of South-East Europe Lumina, Bucharest. Publications: The Romanian school at the beginning of the 3rd millennium, Paideia Publishing House, Bucure ti, 1997 (co-author); The anthology of laws in Romanian Education, The Institute of Education Sciences, Bucure ti, 2004 (coauthor); University in a new light... The University of South-East Europe Lumina, Pro Universitaria, Bucure ti, 2010 (co-author); The fundamentals of education, Vol. I, Pro Universitaria, Bucure ti, 2010 (coord.). Gheorghe STOICA Ph.D. professor at the University of Bucharest, and a principal scientific researcher at the University of South-East Europe Lumina (Faculty of Economic and Political Sciences), Bucharest. His bibliography includes, among other works, the following books: Intelectualii și politica, ISPRI, Bucharest, 2007; Concepte, idei și analize politice, Editura Diogene, Bucure ti, 2000; Machiavelli, filosof al politicii, Editura tiin ificĖ, Bucure ti, 2000 (translated by the Italian Publishing House Città del Sole, Napoli, 2003); Cultură, umanism, pace, Editura MilitarĖ, Bucure ti, 1989; Gramsci, cultura și politica, Editura PoliticĖ, Bucure ti, 1987; “Il populismo in Romania”, Democrazia e diritto, No. 3-4, 2010. He is the author of over 150 articles and studies published in Romania, as well as abroad. He is a visiting professor at the University La Sapienza (Rome), the University Roma 3, the University “L’Orientale” (Napoli), the University of San Marino, and the University of Tarragona. 220 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 Adriana Elena STOICAN Ph.D. in Literary and Cultural Studies, at the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, University of Bucharest. She is a lecturer in English at The University of South- East Europe Lumina. Her publications include papers on Roma ethnicity, postcolonial diasporas and Indian literature in English. Her articles have appeared in Annals of the University of Craiova; Balkan Cultural Identities; East-West Cultural Passage; Humanicus-Academic Journal of Humanities, Social Sciences and Philosophy; Muses India: Essays on English- Language Writers from Mahomet to Rushdie; The University of Bucharest Review. A Journal of Literary and Cultural Studies; TRANS – Internet Journal for Cultural Studies. 221 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 Mandatory Submission Guidelines I. ARTICLES Each article will be accompanied by: Last name and forename (Institutional affiliation) E-mail address Abstract (no more than 15 lines, in English – including the title); Mini-CV (in English, of no more than 10 lines, specifying the contributor’s scientific titles, his/her institutional affiliation, the titles of his/her most important publications); Keywords (in English, no more than 5). Important: Each article should contain an Introduction and Conclusions. - - - General recommandations: The desirable dimension of an article is of 40.000-50.000 characters, spaces included (without footnotes). The texts shall be written in Microsoft Word (.doc) or Rich Text Format (.rtf), in 12-point Garamond font, using 1.0 line-spacing. The footnotes shall be written in font 10, using 1.0 line-spacing. Margins: 2.54 cm. (bottom, top, left, right). Paragraph indent shall be of 1 cm. All quotations in the text that exceed 3 lines shall be written in font 10 and shall constitute distinct paragraphs (in italics, with quotation marks). In this case the indent shall be 1 cm (left/ right). The quotations should not exceed 7 lines. A maximum of 3 headings are accepted in structuring the paper. Example: 1. CHAPTER; 1.1. Subchapter; 1.1.1. Sub-Subchapter. English quotation marks shall be used in the text: “the meaning of ’Nationbuilding’ in Anderson’s book”. Use the specific regime of capital letters in the titles (Ethnicity and Electoral Politics). The punctuation marks that shall be followed by a blank space are , . ? ! : ; The one preceded and followed by a blank space is – The footnotes shall be numbered from 1 to n. Quotation system (Footnotes):  The order of the elements of a cited paper is the following: - Volumes: author (Arend LIJPHART), title (in italics), publishing house, town, year, page/ pages (p./ pp.) - Articles: author, title of the article (with quotation marks), title of the journal (in italics), Vol., No, Year, pp. 222 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 - Chapters in collective volumes: author, title of the chapter (with quotation marks), in, the coordinator’s/ publisher’s name, (ed.)/ (eds.), title of the volume (with quotation marks), publishing house, town, year, pp. - For on-line sources, the afore-mentioned order shall be used: Author, Title..., Publishing house, place of publication, Year... . At the end the link shall be placed in square brackets [...]. Note: In case the publishing house or the publication place is not specified, write n.p. (i.e. “no publisher”/ “no place”). In case the year when the work was published is not specified write n.d. (“no date”).  Example: Arend LIJPHART, Electoral Systems and Party Systems. A Study of Twenty-Seven Democracies, 1945-1990, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1994, pp. 80-90. Iain McLEAN, Arnold B. URKEN (eds.), Classics of Social Choice, The University of Michigan Press, Michigan, 1995, p. 70. Giulia SANDRI, Carlo PALA, “L’impact du processus de régionalisation sur le système politique et de partis italien”, in Jean-Benoit PILET, Jean-Michel DE WAELE, Serge JAUMAIN (eds.), L’absence des partis nationaux: menace ou opportunité, Éditions de l’Université de Bruxelles, Bruxelles 2009, pp. 97-125. Antoine ROGER, “Economic Development and Positioning of Ethnic Political Parties: Comparing Post-Communist Bulgaria and Romania”, Southeast European Politics, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2002, pp. 20-42. Repetition of bibliographic references: - If one and the same author appears in successive notes and is quoted with a different paper, starting with the second note use Idem. - If the same paper is cited in successive notes, starting with the second note, the reference shall be Ibidem. - Starting with the second bibliographical reference to one and the same paper, but in non-consecutive notes, ...cit./…cit. (lat., citato) is recommended to be used.  Examples: 1 Benedict ANDERSON, Imagined Communities. Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism, Verso, New York & London, 1983. 2 Ibidem, pp. 9-24. 3 Pierre BOURDIEU, The Field of Cultural Production, Polity, Cambridge, 1993. 4 Idem, Ce que parler veut dire. L’Économie des échanges linguistiques, Fayard, Paris, 1982. 5 Antoine ROGER, “Economic Development and Positioning of Ethnic Political Parties: Comparing Post-Communist Bulgaria and Romania”, Southeast European Politics, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2002, pp. 20-42. 6 Benedict ANDERSON, Imagined Communities…cit., p. 145. 7 Antoine ROGER, “Economic Development and Positioning...cit.”. Structure of bibliography: - The works shall be enumerated in alphabetical order. 223 South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013 - The last name of the author (in capitals) shall precede his forename (in lowercase letters). - On-line sources that cannot be ordered alphabetically (the name of the author is missing), shall be mentioned at the end of the bibliography. - The names of the publication places of the cited works, others than cities belonging to English speaking countries, shall not be translated into English (Write for instance Bucure ti, Wien,... ).  Example: LIJPHART, Arend, Thinking about Democracy. Power Sharing and Majority Rule in Theory and Practice, Routledge, London & New York, 2008. MAYER, Nonna, PERRINEAU, Pascal, Les comportements politiques, Armand Colin, Paris, 1992. II. BOOK REVIEWS - - The reviewed works should be recent (published no more than 4 years ago). The recommended dimension of a review is of 3-4 pages (between 8.000-11.000 characters, spaces included). The reviews shall be written in Microsoft Word (.doc) or Rich Text Format (.rtf), in 12-point Garamond font, using 1.0 line-spacing. The footnotes shall be written in font 10, using 1.0 line-spacing. The quotations in the reviewed paper shall be followed by the reference to the page/Example: (pp. 17-21). The book reviews shall be accompanied by the bibliographic description of the reviewed paper (author/ authors, title, publishing house, town, year, number of pages).  Example: Tom GALLAGHER, Romania and the European Union: How the Weak Vanquished the Strong, Manchester University Press, Manchester and New York, 2009, 304 pp. III. ESSAYS, INTERVIEWS, ARCHIVES, CHRONOLOGIES, EVENT RUBRIC - The recommended dimension is between 10-20 pages (approximately 30.00055.000 characters, spaces included). They shall be written Microsoft Word (.doc) or Rich Text Format (.rtf), in 12point Garamond font, using 1.0 line-spacing. The footnotes shall be written in font 10, using 1.0 line-spacing. Authors are fully responsible for the accuracy of all data in their contributions to this journal (articles, book reviews, etc.). The Journal is exonerated from juridical responsibility. 224