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This suggests some difficulty transcending clientelism, personalism, and corruption as a basis for party competition, rather than the primacy of party ideology and policies, leadership qualities, and retrospective and prospective governing records. While still developing, the institutionalization of the party system is progressing about as rapidly as can be expected, given the persistent voting irregularities and political disequilibrium generated by the spasmodic process of democratization and reform.

He calls for greater and transparent privatization and rational fiscal and monetary policies, which will hopefully attract foreign capital, alleviate illiquidity, and halt monetization. He admonishes, “Unless financial discipline is imposed on the budget process, the pressure on the central bank, and on the banking sector in general, will become a constant feature of the way the system functions. This will also proliferate into wide-ranging rent-seeking and demand for cheap credit. ” Larry S. Bush’s chapter on “Trade Unions and Labor Relations” reviews the progress made since 1989 toward establishing a viable labor movement and the nascent structures for tripartite negotiations on the Central European, corporatist model.

Even women-oriented NGOs have internalized these traditional values. Instead of gender awareness, they focus on family charity and support for women in traditional roles, rather than emancipating them. They argue that a feminist movement along Western lines is unlikely to develop because women share the bias of Romanian society toward accepting paternalist protection of authoritarian institutions, rather than asserting their rights and liberties in democratic ones. The larger liberal dimension, as they put it, remains the “great absent” from the landscape.