The Dimension of Stateness in Times of Crisis: Case Study - Romania

Abstract

For over a generation, the trend of world politics is to weak statehood. In the twentieth century, many states were too strong and committed acts of aggression both on its own population and the neighbouring states.However after September 11, 2001, the main problem of global politics was not to find ways of restricting the state, but to building it. For individualistic societies (USA) and the global community, rendering the state outside the arena was not a prelude to utopia, but the beginning of a global crisis. Despite the many concerns about the loss of power in a global world, the State remains the key actor in the domestic as well as international arenas. The many “challenges that we confront today are beyond the reach of any state to meet on its own. At the national level we must govern better, and at the international level we must learn to govern better together. Effective States are essential for both tasks and their capacity for both needs strengthening” (United Nations, 2000). Since its inception, the national state has guaranteed internal and external security; underpinned the law; funded national welfare systems; provided the structures for popular representation; instituted public accountability; and built the framework for economic and social activities. During the last century, the responsibilities of the State have expanded in all these areas. The general configuration of state responsibilities has changed and this has introduced important modifications both in the policy arena and in the State’s requirements for high-level skills, qualitatively and quantitatively. Even, developing countries have made tremendous progress toward reforming the state in the last decade. As Fukuyama noticed in his book ‘State – Building. Governance and world order in the 21st century’ the absence of a state-building agenda and an appropriate institutional framework, and also the capture of the state in the globalization movement (n.a.), brought it in an even worse situation after liberalization, than if this would not be produced at all. Starting from the distinction created by Fukuyama between the two dimensions of stateness (scale and institutional capacity/strength) we will try to place Romania in the stateness matrix considering the range of the state functions and their arrangement. In our study we will try to determine the state functions in times of crises taking into consideration that Romania is a state in transition, a state under reform. In times of crises the state must react and his reaction, in most cases, produces effects in economical and social sector. Therefore, often the main lever of state intervention in economy is public administration. For example the financial credits of the state are managed by the government, more precisely by public administration. But even in this area, there are a variety of ways of doing things. Thus, once we have identified the state functions we will try to determine public administration functions when the state is in economic crisis. On the state leaders agenda, at the request of IMF, is compulsory to take into account the reduction of the expenses of budgetary payments. In this situation the state must react and choose either the disposal of the civil servants either of sending them home in non-payment. One important point is to see if the state manages to keep the civil services at the same level of quality without budget, salaries or trained human resources (The Romanian Government announced disposals of 20% of civil servants even we can see that at local level it is a lack of trained human resources). In these conditions, is public administration capable to react? When it is “accused” of being bureaucratic, corrupt and short in civil servants? So, we will emphasis the idea that during the financial and economic crisis the state is as strong as public administration is capable to react and manage such a complex situation.