The short communism's journey into democracy: an appraisal of Romanian democratization

Abstract

Two decades after the demise of communism, one can draw a state of the art of democratization in Romania. The task of building democracy was not only an endeavor of institutional engineering, but also a re-conceptualization of the intellectual resources of politics, as well as a re-conversion of the instruments and modes of government. Romanian democratization meant simultaneously unraveling the state and the regime and separating the state and the society. Both processes were grounded in the make up of political parties which turned to be not only their authors, but also one of their chief products. Successful as they were, these two disengagements led unwittingly to a third one: between the political regime and the society reshaped by postcommunism.