Assessing Democracy Assistance: The Case of Romania
By Thomas Carothers. Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1996. 144 pp.,
$12.95, paper.
Romania after Ceausescu
By Tom Gallagher. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1995. 256 pp., $29.50, paper.
Ceausescu and the Securitate: Coercion and Dissent in Romania, 1965-1989
By Dennis Deletant. Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1995. 424 pp., $65.
When Romania finally overthrew its "megalomaniac" Communist dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu, quickly and
violently in December 1989, the last bastion of communism in Eastern Europe fell. Because it had not
undergone a period of liberalism or gradual depoliticization, Romania's transition from communism was
markedly different than in neighboring countries. Romania emerged trapped in a stagnant "democratic state"
led largely by "reformed" members of the Communist Party. Thomas Carothers, Tom Gallagher, and Dennis
Deletant address specific issues that kept the country frozen in its transitory state: external democracy
assistance programs, nationalism, and the legacy of Ceausescu's Securitate.
In his comprehensive and thought-provoking study of past and present assistance to Romania, Thomas Carothers attempts to redress what he calls a general ignorance of United States democracy assistance work in practice. He identifies and analyzes seven primary areas that have formed the core of most United States democracy assistance programs, including those in Romania: political parties, elections, rule of law, parliament, civil society, trade unions, and the media. Carothers objectively discusses the strengths and failings of the various programs, revealing that the stagnant nature of Romanian politics and society in the post-transition phase makes it an excellent case study for showing the "value, strategies, methods, and future" of democracy assistance programs. Carothers concludes with the observation that "the case for democracy assistance may at times depend less on the specific impact of the assistance on others than on what the assistance says and means about ourselves."
Tom Gallagher examines one of the greatest hindrances Romania faces in developing democracy: nationalism. Although Romanian nationalism has not reached the intensity found among its eastern neighbors, the country's long history of divisions, especially between Romanians and ethnic Hungarians, encumbers its transition to an egalitarian and democratic society. His well-researched historical study unfolds the layers of Romanian nationalism as it has developed from the pre- to the postcommunist era.
While psychologically manipulating Romanians by teaching them to hate the outside, especially the West, and inciting nationalism, Ceausescu physically controlled the people through the terror of his internal security force known as the Securitate. Dennis Deletant offers a detailed look at the rise of the Securitate to show how Ceausescu and the Communist party nearly paralyzed an entire society.
All three authors acknowledge the optimism that initially suffused Romania in early 1990, but their conclusions about the present are bleak. Deletant explains it best. In mid-1990 optimism gave way to disillusion as people realized that their "revolution" had been stolen by a government calling itself the National Salvation Front, a government that was composed of former Communist Party members who had merely "exchanged their Communist Party cards for those of the National Salvation Front." The NSF, with its reliance on control and manipulation, bore more than a slight resemblance to Ceausescu's Communist Party. Speaking of Ceausescu's government, but with foresight, Deletant notes that a government that "fails to satisfy the needs of the people, and attempts to cover up the injustices of the past, runs the risk of generating a cancerous sapping of its authority." That lack of authority will drain its ability to govern.
In the fall of 1996, long after Carothers's, Gallagher's, and Deletant's books had gone to press, Romanians voted Ion Iliescu and the Party of Social Democracy (the NSF's nominal successor) out of power; longtime opposition leader Emil Constantinescu now leads the country. Although a change in power has not necessarily meant political and economic improvement, there is again hope for the future in Romania.
Sarah E. Robinson
Srebrenica: Record of a War Crime
By Jan Willem Honig and Norbert Both. New York: Viking Penguin Books, 1997. 185 pp., $11.95, paper.
For General Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb army commander, the capture of predominantly Bosnian
Muslim Srebrenica--a UN-designated "safe area"--on July 11, 1995, was "a present to the Serb nation." For
those who negotiated the Dayton accords, it was something not to be discussed. For those who insist on
recording facts plainly, it was, as Honig and Both put it, "the largest single war crime in Europe since the
Second World War."
Srebrenica grimly details the events that led up to the enclave's fall, and the Bosnian Serb army's systematic murder of several thousand Muslim men and boys in the days following Srebrenica's takeover. It is easy to agree with the authors that this was a war crime; it is hard to understand why Ratko Mladic, who has been indicted for the killing at Srebrenica, remains free today.
William W. Finan, Jr.
Unfinished Peace: Report of the International Commission on the Balkans
Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1996. 198 pp., $14.95, paper.
Committee reports generally represent lowest common denominator thinking; consensus is the aim, and
milquetoast findings the result. The report of the International Commission on the Balkans, which was
sponsored by the Carnegie Endowment and the Aspen Institute, stands this charge on its head with its
unbiased, critical observations, levelheaded analysis, and practical recommendations--all of which were
lacking during much of the Bosnian conflict. Those wanting to understand what has happened in the Balkans
since 1989, and what remains to be done, will find Unfinished Peace essential reading.
W. W. F.