Nation-Building and Contested Identities: Romanian & Hungarian ...

Can Democracy Work in Southeastern Europe?nomic transformation was based, and then to examine how each of the tenmeasures has been applied in Romania. 65 The comparison results in thefollowing characteristics of Romania’s economic reform strategy:(1) gradual liberalization of prices; (2) soft budget constraints for stateenterprises and difficult access on the market for new private companies;(3) slow pace of privatization; (4) difficulties in enforcing contracts;(5) a rudimentary, “captive” banking system; (6) readiness of the governmentto accept high unemployment, but unwillingness to proceed toa rapid restructuring; (7) difficulties in tax collection; (8) incompetence inmaking use of the advantage of not having external debts inherited fromthe communist regime; (9) an over-appreciated official exchange rateuntil 1994; and (10) a slow penetration of information technology.In my opinion, an important aspect of Romania’s protracted economictransformation is related to a cultural syndrome, developed by thesocieties under “real socialism,” defined by Piotr Sztompka as “civilizationalincompetence.” Sztompka argues that a developed society operateson the basis of a “less obvious, underlying cultural resource,” called “civilizationalcompetence,” that is, “a complex set of rules, norms, and values,habits and reflexes, codes and matrixes, blueprints and formats – the skillfuland semi-automatic mastering of which is a prerequisite for participationin a modern civilization.” Furthermore, he identifies four sub-categoriesof civilizational competence: (1) enterprise culture; (2) civicculture; (3) discursive culture; and (4) everyday culture. 66 I would arguethat the lack of an enterprise culture was an essential element that hampereda rapid economic transformation in Romania. According toSztompka, enterprise culture is essential for participating in a marketeconomy and is characterized by “innovative push, achievement orientation,individualistic competitiveness and rational calculation.” 67 In thecase of Romania, Katherine Verdery provides an insightful analysis of theCaritas pyramid scheme that functioned between 1992 and 1994 in Clujand attracted around 10% of Romania’s population. As Verdery shows,the success of the pyramid-schemes and other so-called “mutual-aidgames” during the 1990-1994 period proved that the majority of Romania’spopulation had a different conception of money and value thana population living in a market economy. 68To conclude, it was not only the legacy of the communist economicsystem that hindered a successful economic transformation in post-communistRomania. The slow pace of privatization resulted in a reducedinflux of foreign capital. Furthermore, the incapacity to provide adequateresponses to populist pressure was another major hindrance to a short andless painful economic transformation in Romania. Consequently, thegradual and contradictory transformation of the Romanian economy led289