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

DRAGOº PETRESCU64 For more on the economic evolutions in post-communist Romania see Dãianu,Încotro se îndreaptã þãrile postcomuniste? pp. 193-224. See also Ilie ªerbãnescu,foreword to Dãianu, pp. 11-12.65 The Polish model of transformation has been based on ten essential measures:(1) immediate and resolute price and trade liberalization; (2) strict budget constraintsfor state enterprises and easy access on the market for new privatecompanies; (3) slow and thorough privatization of medium and large-scaleenterprises and rapid privatization of small enterprises; (4) adoption ofa sound commercial code and “the inheritance of a legal system capable ofenforcing contracts;” (5) close supervision and regulation of the banking sector;(6) government’s readiness to accept the high unemployment that followsrapid restructuring; (7) low budget deficit of the government and the introductionof a effective tax system; (8) successful negotiations on reducing the foreigndebt; (9) an exchange rate policy that provides stability to real effectiveexchange rates; and (10) expansion of business schools and rapid spread ofinformation technology. See Stanislaw Gomulka, “Output: Causes of theDecline and the Recovery,” in Peter Boone, Stanislaw Gomulka and RichardLayard, eds., Emerging from Communism: Lessons from Russia, China andEastern Europe (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1998), pp. 32-33.66 See Piotr Sztompka, “Civilizational Incompetence: The Trap of Post-CommunistSocieties,” Zeitschrift für Soziologie (April 1993), pp. 88-89.67 Sztompka, “Civilizational Incompetence,” p. 89.68 See Katherine Verdery, What Was Socialism, and What Comes Next? (Princeton:Princeton University Press, 1996), pp. 168-203.69 Dãianu, Încotro se îndreaptã þãrile postcomuniste? p. 238.70 Hirschman, The Rhetoric of Reaction, p. 162.71 Regarding Vadim Tudor and the GRP, Tismãneanu and Kligman have written:“The real surprise of the 2000 elections was not the victory of Iliescu andPSDR, but, rather, the stunning rise of Vadim Tudor and his GRP. A combinationof antisystem nationalist caudillo and self-indulgent jester, Vadim Tudormanaged to transform a marginal political organization into a major oppositionparty that now controls one-fifth of Romania’s parliament and many of itsspecialized committees.” See Vladimir Tismãneanu and Gail Kligman,“Romania’s First Postcommunist Decade: From Iliescu to Iliescu,” East EuropeanConstitutional Review, vol. 10, no. 1 (Winter 2001), p. 83. For more on theresults of the 2000 elections and the rise of Greater Romania Party, see thespecial issue of Sfera Politicii 87-88 (2001).72 Ken Jowitt, New World Disorder: The Leninist Extinction (Berkeley: Universityof California Press, 1992), p. 305.73 Jowitt, New World Disorder, p. 305.74 Gellner, Nationalism, pp. 103-108.75 Tismãneanu, “Romanian exceptionalism?” pp. 439-440.76 Gellner, Nationalism, pp. 107-108.77 On the concepts of “exit,” “voice,” and “loyalty” see Albert O. Hirschman,Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970).298