Clientelism and political recruitment in democratic transition: Evidence from Romania

Comparative Politics

Volumn 43, Issue 2, 2011, Pages 207-224

  Protsyk, Oleh ^a   Matichescu, Marius Lupsa ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 79951625142     PISSN: 00104159     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.5129/001041511793931807     Document Type: Article

References (59)

1. For research on clientelism, see Herbert Kitschelt, Linkages Between Citizens and Politicians in Democratic Polities," Comparative Political Studies, 33 (August 2000), 845-79;
2. Luis Roniger, "Political Clientelism, Democracy, and Market Economy," Comparative Politics, 36 (April 2002): 353-75;
3. Herbert Kitschelt and Steven Wilkinson, Patrons, Clients and Policies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007);
4. Gretchen Helmke and Steven Levitsky, "Informal Institutions and Comparative Politics: A Research Agenda," Perspectives on Politics, 2 (December 2004), 725-36.
5. Werner J. Patzelt, "Recruitment and Retention in Western European Parliaments," in Gerhard Loewenberg and D. Roderick Kiewiet, eds., Legislatures: Comparative Perspectives on Representative Assemblies (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002), 80-119.
6. John Higley and Gyorgy Lengyel, Elites after State Socialism: Theories and Analysis (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000);
7. Gil Eyal, Ivan Szelenyi, and Eleanor R. Townsley, Making Capitalism without Capitalists: Class Formation and Elite Struggles in Post-Communist Central Europe (London: Verso, 1998).
8. Pippa Norris, "Legislative Recruitment," in Lawrence LeDuc, Richard G. Niemi, and Pippa Norris, eds., Comparing Democracies: Elections and Wing in Global Perspective (London: Sage, 1996);
9. Heinrich Best and Maurizio Cotta, Parliamentary Representatives in Europe, 1848-2000: Legislative Recruitment and Careers in Eleven European Countries (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).
10. Peter M. Siavelis and Scott Morgenstern, "Political Recruitment and Candidate Selection in Latin America: A Framework for Analysis, " Paper presented at the Conference, "Pathways to Power: Political Recruitment and Democracy in Latin America," Wake Forest University, April 2-4, 2004.
11. See, for example, Pippa Norris, ed., Passages to Power: Legislative Recruitment in Advanced Democracies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
12. Recent studies on party finance in Eastern Europe include Daniel Smilov and Jurij Toplak, eds., Political Finance and Corruption in Eastern Europe: The Transition Period (Burlington: Ashgate, 2007);
13. Steven D. Roper and Jānis Ikstens, Public Finance and Post-Communist Party Development (Burlington: Ashgate, 2008).
14. M. Steven Fish and Matthew Kroenig, The Legislative Powers Survey and the Parliamentary Powers Index: A Global Study of the Powers of National Legislatures, unpublished manuscript (University of California, Berkeley, 2006).
15. See Laurentui Stefan, Patterns of Political Elite Recruitment in Post-Communist Romania (Bucuresti: Ziua, 2004);
16. Sarah Whitmore, State Building in Ukraine: The Ukrainian Parliament, 1990-2003 (London: Routledge, 2004). In Bulgaria a number of influential business people, including the executive director of the country's largest steel mill, Kremikovtsi, entered parliament in the 1990s on the ticket of the ruling Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP). In the Macedonian case, the owners of the country's two major TV stations, for example, were elected to parliament as recently as 2008 (the authors' dataseis on Macedonian and Bulgarian parliaments).
17. On the role of structural factors in post-communist transition, see Herbert Kitschelt, Z. Mansfeldova, R. Markowski, and G. Toka, Post-Communist Party Systems: Competition, Representation and Inter-Party Cooperation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999);
18. Grzegorz Ekiert and Stephen E. Hanson, Capitalism and Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe: Assessing the Legacy of Communist Rule, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
19. Our data cover the period of Romanian political development until 2004. Delays in Romanian EU accession until 2007 were caused, among other things, by unsatisfactory legal reforms. Since accession, the European Commission continues to monitor justice reforms in Romanian and reserves some of its harshest criticism of Romanian authorities for political interferences in the working of the legal system. One recent study argues convincingly that the EU was tricked into offering full membership to Romania in return for substantial reforms, which the country's authorities now refuse to carry out. Tom Gallagher. Romania and the European Union: How the Weak Vanquished the Strong (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009).
20. We focus here on the willingness and ability of parties to recruit business elites and not on the duration or strength of ties that parties develop with business groups. The latter issues, however, merit further research. They can inform our understanding of how parties and business groups' choices of partners in clientelistic exchanges are constrained by decisions taken in prior rounds of pact-making and whether continuity or change characterizes relationships between parties and different types of businesses.
21. Sarah Birch, Frances Millard, Marina Popescu, and Kieran Williams, Embodying Democracy: Electoral System Design in Post-Communist Europe (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002);
22. William Crowther and Steven D. Roper, "A Comparative Analysis of Institutional Development in the Romanian and Moldovan Legislatures," in David M. Olson and Philip Norton, eds., The New Parliaments of Central and Eastern Europe (London: Frank Cass, 1996);
23. Stefan, Political Elite Recruitment.
24. Dinu Patriciu, president of Rompetrol Holding, is a parliamentary deputy elected on the list of the National Liberal Party (PNL). His sponsorship of political parties is discussed, for example, in Alina Mihai, Patriciu admite c-a pompat energie vie in Nastase" (Patriciu admits energizing Nastase), Cotidianul, August 3, 2006.
25. Steven D. Roper, "The Influence of Romanian Campaign Finance Laws on Party System Development and Corruption," Party Politics, 8 (March 2002), 175-92;
26. Stefan, Political Elite Recruitment.
27. Authors' calculations are based on Adrian Morara, "Banii din politica 2004. Raportari Financiare si informatii fiscale ale partidelor din Romania," (Money from Politics 2004). Financial report and financial information on Romanian parties, Institurul de politici publice (IPP), Bucharest, 2004.
28. Asociatia Pro Democratia, "Fondurile partidelor politice in Romania in anul electoral 2000," Bucharest, 2001;
29. Asociatia Pro Democratia, "Alegeri la limita democratiei" (Election at the Limit of Democracy), Bucharest, 2004.
30. Steven Roper, Adrian Morary, and Elena Iorga, "Romania," in Roper and Ikstens, Public Finance.
31. Parliamentary refusal to allow criminal charges against deputies Adrian Nastase and Miron Mitrea, who previously served as prime minister and transport minister, respectively, is the most prominent example of the use of immunity clauses by Romanian MPs.
32. Henry F. Carey, Romania since 1989: Politics, Economics, and Society (Lanham, MD.; Oxford: Lexington, 2004);
33. William Crowther, "Romania," in Sten Berglund, Joacim Ekman, and Frank H. Aarebrot, eds., Handbook of Political Change in Eastern Europe (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2004);
34. Grigore Pop-Eleches, "Romania's Politics of Dejection," Journal of Democracy, 12 (July 2001), 156-69.
35. Official parliamentary data from Camera deputatilor, Structurile altor legislature, www.cdep.ro.
36. Stefan, Political Elite Recruitment.
37. Rompres, Protagonisti ai vietii publice. Decembrie 1989-decembrie 1994 (Protagonists of Public Life December 1989-December 1994), Vols. 1-3, (Bucuresti: Agentia Nationala de presa Rompres, 1994);
38. Asociatia Pro Democratia, Cartea albastra a democratiei. Un ghid al institutiilor publice centrale (Blue book of Democracy A Guide to Central Public Institutions), (Bucuresti: Aldo Press, 2006).
39. Peter Esaiasson and Soren Holmberg, Representation from Above: Members of Parliament and Representative Democracy in Sweden (Aldershot: Dartmouth Publishing Company, 1996);
40. Juan Linz, Pilar Gangas, and Miguel Jerz Mir, "Spanish Diputados: From the 1876 Restoration to Consolidated Democracy," in Heinrich Best and Maurizio Corta, eds., Parliamentary Representatives in Europe, 1848-2000, Legislative Recruitment and Careers in Eleven European Countries (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000);
41. Bernhard Wessels, "Germany," in Norris, Passages to Power.
42. Best and Cotta, Parliamentary Representatives in Europe;
43. Maurizio Cotta and Heinrich Best, Democratic Representation in Europe: Diversity, Change, and Convergence (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).
44. Gabriela Ilonszki, "Socialist and Communist Members of Parliament: Distinctiveness, Convergence, and Variance," in Cotta and Best, Democratic Representation in Europe.
45. William Crowther, "Romania," in Berglund, Ekman, and Aarebrot, Handbook of Political Change;
46. Stefan, Political Elite Recruitment;
47. Grigore Pop-Eleches, "Post-Communist Successor Parties in Romania," Paper presented at the Association for Study of Nationalities Meeting, New York, 2008.
48. Sonia Alonso, "Enduring Ethnicity: The Political Survival of Incumbent Ethnic Parties in Western Democracies," in Jose Maria Maravall and Ignacio Sánchez-Cuenca, eds., Controlling Governments: Voters, Institutions, and Accountability (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007);
49. Johanna Kristin Birnir, Ethnicity and Electoral Politics (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
50. See, for example, Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming the Communist Past: The Regeneration of Communist Successor Parties in East Central Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002);
51. Henry H. Hale, Why Not Parties? Democracy, Federalism, and the State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006);
52. Regina Smyth, Candidate Strategies and Electoral Competition in the Russian Federation: Democracy without Foundation (Cambridge: New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006);
53. Conor O'Dwyer, Runaway State-Building: Patronage Politics and Democratic Development (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006).
54. Venelin I. Ganev. Preying on the State: The Transformation of Bulgaria after 1989 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2007).
55. Academic discussion of these practices can be found, for example, in Catalin Augustin Stoica, "From Good Communists to Even Better Capitalists? Entrepreneurial Pathways in Post-Socialist Romania," East European Politics and Society, 18 (May 2004), 236-77. A recent example of journalistic reporting is the investigation of management salaries in the large state-owned utility company, Electrica. The report uncovered extremely high salaries by Romanian standards for the top management of this enterprise. The company's head was appointed by a governing PDL; a previous head of Electrica was a member of the PNL party, which was a member of the government coalition prior to 2008. "Director la stat cu salariu de 400.000 de euro pe an" /State manager with 400.000 Euro salary/, Libertatea, 7 April 2009.
56. Authors' confidential interview with the two heads of regional party organizations, Romania, June 2007. Both informants indicated that all candidates, irrespective of their occupational background and financial standing, are expected to make campaign contributions. This suggests that business actors might finance electoral expenses not only for their representatives but also for other type of candidates that a party puts on its electoral list. For an illustration of how important candidates' contributions are, see, for example, Andrei Ando, "Candidaţii au fost cei mai important sponsori ai partidelor lor, anui trecut" /Candidates are the most important sponsors of their parties/, 10 April 2009 at http://www.observator. info.
57. The following parties were coded as main government parties: for the 1992 elections, FDSN; for the 1996 elections, PD and PNL; for the 2000 elections, PDSR; and for the 2004 elections, PD and PNL.
58. The practice of politically motivated appointments and dismissals has been strongly institutionalized in the Romanian civil service in the last twenty years. The most recent example is the government decision 37/ 2009 to lay off 15,000 employees who were appointed to various government agencies by the previous government. See Bogdan Grosereanu et al., "Cine sunt oamenii prin care partidele de la putere controleaza tara?" (Who are the people that parties use to control the country?), 25 May 2009,
59. Romania Libera. A good discussion of patronage practices in a comparative East European perspective is provided in O'Dwyer, Runaway State-Building.