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process after 1990. It was always said that ex-Communist politicians, mostly grouped
around the Social Democratic Party, had experience in working with a powerful bureau-
cracy inherited from the Communist regime. The bureaucracy basically incorporated
the knowledge of how to govern. From this perspective, politicians had to rely on this
expertise or perish.
On the other hand, the bureaucracy in the army, secret services, ministries, local ad-
ministration and justice system was in its nature conservative and resistant to change.
The decision between shock therapy and slower reform after 1990 in Romania was
almost made by the bureaucracy. Rapid changes would have led to technocrats los-
ing all privileges and power. Democratic processes that occurred after 1990 gradu-
ally removed discretionary power from the bureaucracy and empowered new social
and political categories. In order to see their strategies and programs implemented,
politicians then had to compromise with technocrats. One of the major compromis-
es concluded was leaving more opportunities for bureaucrats to control economic
resources. This is mainly how corruption was generated in transition societies and
spread to all administration levels. The apparent competence of the social democrats
in government business was due to this armistice that enabled them to negotiate with
the bureaucracy. The technocrats had to obey political orders and implement gradual
reforms, in exchange for protection in matters of corruption. Privatization of state-
owned enterprises, public procurement and fiscal policies all included space for illicit
but profitable personal business for the bureaucrats. Obviously not all politicians were
innocent in liberalizing informal practices that skimmed off the benefit of transition
economies. Sometimes they took their own share.
When center-right parties came to power for the first time in 1997 determined to fight
corruption, they either discovered the occult mechanisms that resisted reforms or the
benefits of compromising with the bureaucracy. All in all, inexperienced liberal and
Christian-democrat politicians realized the real force of the bureaucracy in Romania.
There were several accounts of ministers in that period regarding how people in the ad-
ministrative apparatus behaved very selectively, implementing decisions mostly accord-
ing to their private interests. There was a sense of solidarity among second- or third-
level public officials that started to function whenever group interests were threatened
by political decisions.
Before having won the 1996 elections, the Democratic Convention promised to bring
15,000 experts into the administrative machinery. This, however, was another number
that had nothing to do with reality. In fact, the right did not expect to win the 1996 elec-
tions and therefore was not prepared to govern the country. Even though they tried to
replace some of the heads of the bureaucracy, they did not have enough competent people
to fill all positions, and soon became the victims of the powerful technocratic machinery.
Most of the old public officials were retained in exchange for political loyalty. Democratic
Convention parties, overwhelmed by the responsibility of managing economic and ad-
ministrative business, preferred to live with the illusion that at least they had recruited
new political activists from the bureaucratic level. Later on they understood that most
of the bureaucrats would have sold their “loyalty” to any other politicians, no matter the
ideology, in order to preserve their positions.
