Nationalism and Civil Society in Romania
| Date | 01 June 1999 |
| DOI | 10.1111/1467-9248.00199 |
| Published date | 01 June 1999 |
| Author | Ovidiu Caraiani,Bruce Haddock |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Nationalism and Civil Society in Romania
BRUCE HADDOCK
University of Wales, Swansea
AND OVIDIU CARAIANI
University Politehnica, Bucharest
We explore the theoretical underpinnings of a political debate initiated in 1989 by the
Grupul pentru Dialog Social about identity, legitimacy and civil society in Romania.
Commentators have often focused on the resurgence of nationalism as a response to
the politics of transition. We concentrate, instead, on the normative engagement
which distinguishes practical argument in general. We oer a theoretical bridge which
sets the sharply dierentiated positions of protagonists contributing to the Romanian
debate in a broader theoretical perspective. Our central claim is that attempts
to defend a revised version of `civic nationalism' fail to resolve tensions between
individualist and collectivist notions. By focusing on what is `civic' about civic
nationalism, the terms of reference of the debate are signi®cantly shifted.
Our concern in this paper is to analyse the theoretical assumptions which have
informed attempts to modernize the Romanian state in the period since the fall
of CeausËescu. The broad terms of reference will be familiar. Modernizers have
sought to adopt (something like) the western conception of civil society, with a
stress on human rights, the rule of law, economic liberalism and association
with pan-European institutions. They have found themselves confronted not
only by hard-line nationalists, for whom cosmopolitan language is a betrayal of
Romanian national identity, but by traditionalists intent upon reconciling a
distinctive Romanian inheritance with a wider Europe des patries. The political
attractions of the latter position are evident. The nationalism which was such a
marked feature of Romanian public culture under CeausËescu has not simply
disappeared, nor in fact was it created by CeausËescu and his ideologues.1
Reconstructions of the intellectual pedigree and institutional entrenchment of
nationalist discourse in successive Romanian regimes tell us a great deal about
the building blocks of the contemporary debate. What they leave out of
account, however, is the normative engagement which distinguishes practical
argument in general. We focus on arguments (well or ill conceived) which have
sought to exploit and extend the terms of public discourse in contemporary
Romania. We treat them as more or less defensible theoretical statements, not as
1 See Katherine Verdery, National Ideology under Socialism: Identity and Cultural Politics in
CeausËescu's Romania (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1991); and Dennis Deletant, `The
Debate between Tradition and Modernity in the Shaping of a Romanian Identity', in Robert
P. Pynsent (ed.), The Literature of Nationalism: Essays on East European Identity (London,
Macmillan, 1996), pp. 14±26.
# Political Studies Association 1999. Published by Blackwell Publishers, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main
Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
BRUCE HADDOCK AND OVIDIU CARAIANI
259
types of argument. Our reconstruction of the debate is thus a contribution to the
debate itself.
Conventional discussions of nationalism have been largely concerned with
the elaboration of typologies. Distinctions within the European context vary
from broad (and imprecise) contrasts between the nationalisms of east and west,
to more technical characterizations of civic/ethnic or reform/integral national-
ism.2 These typologies are helpful up to a point. Yet they do little to clarify the
conceptual distinctions at the margin of contrasting types. Examples of
discourse can be placed on a spectrum; but the considerations which might
persuade protagonists to change their views are left unexplored. It is one thing
to show how dierent conceptions of the nation have been appropriated in
Romanian public debate, and quite another to consider the cogency of the
arguments advanced. Clearly little can be achieved if plausible terms of
reference are not ®rst established. In the Romanian tradition, a contrast might
be drawn between western/Roman/modernizing/individualist conceptions
and eastern/Dacian/traditionalist/anti-European/collectivist conceptions, each
exploiting familiar notions in an on-going debate. Our interest here, however, is
with what it means to hold a particular view in the face of possible objections.
There is nothing methodologically odd about this approach; it is simply to treat
a sophisticated Romanian debate as a species of political theory.
A marked feature of the contemporary debate is the reluctance to break with
established terms of discourse. Marxism, of course, has been a spectacular
casualty. In one sense, however, Marxism had already been relegated to a sub-
ordinate role through CeausËescu's exploitation of entrenched nationalist
assumptions. The preoccupation with national identity, readily intelligible in
an earlier context of state formation and expansion, has survived, fostering
discussions which marginalize signi®cant groups within Romanian society. It is
bitterly ironic that the politics of identity, which did so much to undermine even
the beginnings of an autonomous civil society under CeausËescu, should
continue to be the obsession of politicians anxious to set Romania on a new
path.3 This is a problem which, in one form or another, has beset all the
emerging post-communist states. There is no typical case. Each state ®nds itself
breaking new ground in its adaptation of received understandings to unprece-
dented political and economic conditions.4 The point to stress is that these
traditions are never ®nally closed. Within Romania the politics of identity
has been challenged at the intellectual level, albeit ineectively. Our aim is to set
this vital argument in a wider context of theoretical debate which may go some
2 See, for example, John Hutchinson and Anthony D. Smith (eds), Nationalism (Oxford, Oxford
University Press, 1994); John Hutchinson, Modern Nationalism (London, Fontana Press, 1994);
Walker Connor, Ethnonationalism: the Quest for Understanding (Princeton, Princeton University
Press, 1994); Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1983); Peter Alter,
Nationalism (London, Edward Arnold, 1985); Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Re¯ec-
tions on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London, Verso, 1983); Sukumar Periwal (ed.), Notions
of Nationalism (Budapest, Central European University Press, 1995); Liah Greenfeld, Nationalism:
Five Roads to Modernity (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1992); James G. Kellas, The
Politics of Nationalism and Ethnicity (London, Macmillan, 1991); and Montserrat Guibernau,
Nationalisms: the Nation-State and Nationalism in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge, Polity, 1996).
3 See Tom Gallagher, Romania after CeausËescu (Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 1995).
4 See the collection of essays in Richard Caplan and John Feer (eds), Europe's New Nationalism:
States and Minorities in Con¯ict (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1996).
# Political Studies Association, 1999
260
Nationalism and Civil Society in Romania
way towards breaking down the exclusive terms of reference of contending
groups.
It is not surprising that national identity should be a pervasive concern.5
Emerging as it did from the collapse of three empires, the Romanian state has
never enjoyed a clear identity or settled boundaries. The nation clearly
antedated the state, though both were constructed identities. Contrasting
constitutionalist and authoritarian strands were already evident in 1848. Con-
stitutionalists such as KogaÆlniceanu, Russo and BaÆlcescu, in¯uenced by French
revolutionary ideas, were always on the defensive in the face of more assertive
characterizations of the essence of the nation. Francophiles were portrayed as
bonjurisËti, advocates of foreign (speci®cally French) customs without roots in
Romanian tradition. Maiorescu and his followers rejected cosmopolitanism as
`shape without substance' and argued instead for an `organic' literature that
would express the unique qualities of Romanian culture.6 The argument came
to a head in the 1920s with the publication of Lovinescu's History of Modern
Romanian Civilization (1924±6) which self-consciously defended a modernist
position that saw the adoption of advanced European institutional and cultural
models as a functional necessity for Romania.7 By challenging the basic
assumptions of indigenous traditionalism in all its guises, Lovinescu served as a
catalyst for the polarization of the national debate.
The emergence of a Romanian version of the Eastern Orthodox religion as a
politically signi®cant movement was decisive for the consolidation of a
Romanian identity with strong anti-western and anti-individualist accents.
Ethnic and religious identity were now equated. Rationalism, positivism and
toleration were seen as decadent manifestations of a declining civilization. In the
inter-war period, the quest for a cultural rebirth of the Romanian nation gave a
pronounced authoritarian tone to political rhetoric, especially in the legionary
movement. This ®rst taste of a mass-based populism was decisive in the
marginalization of liberal individualism.
Stress on the unique qualities of the Romanian tradition became the domin-
ant motif of a philosophical movement (TraÆirism) that served as a signi®cant
bolster to the legionary movement and, through Noica, has continued to...
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