Can Democracy Be its Own Enemy? The Intended Consequences of the 2004 Romanian Elections
Can Democracy Be its Own Enemy? The Intended Consequences of the 2004 Romanian Elections

Summary/Abstract: The 2004 local and general elections confirmed once again that Romanian post-communism defined itself not as a reconstructed state based on representation and as a democratized polity nurtured by the rule of law, but as a political regime that qualifies as democratic simply since it is holding regular multi-party elections. Particracy and the logic of political dualism, which gives the President the final word over Parliament, made sure that these elections are not meant to summarize the will and values of the political society in a deliberative and legislative body, but to measure the share each established political party is entitled to have in the post-electoral negotiation of the executive body. Elections are not conceived as a mirror in which society reflects its cleavages in order to conciliate them without violence, but as a weighing machine for partisan distribution of offices and privileges. In short, elections are not representing society, but introducing the government and reproducing the state. Technically, they are rather particratic than democratic. Procedural democracy is pitted against the very meaning of democracy. In post-communist Romania, elections seem to be an instrument of democracy used to disenfranchise for the second time a disaffected sovereign people.

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