Intelligence Sector Reforms in Romania: A Scorecard
The following blog post, from Lavinia Stan and Marian Zulean, reflects on their Surveillance & Society article “Intelligence Sector Reforms in Romania: A Scorecard.”
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Democratic control over intelligence agencies in Central and East Europe is important because surveillance was widespread until 1989 under the communist regime. Although post-communist Romania has become a liberal democracy and a NATO and European Union member, it’s important to evaluate intelligence sector reforms in that country not only in terms of personnel and operations but also in terms of respect for fundamental human rights. In addition, in the context of the recent debates on the rise of illiberalism in Europe, the Romanian case is of particular interest because of the collusion between a corrupt kleptocracy that seeks to capture the state apparatus and self-serving intelligence agencies that claim the anticorruption fight represented a “tactical field” of their activity.
This article draws on democratization, transitional justice and security studies to evaluate Romanian post-communist intelligence reforms. Its contribution is threefold. First, the article goes beyond democratization studies to address the crucial but underrecognized negative impact of undemocratic intelligence services on post-communist rule of law and accountability of state decision-makers. Second, our case study casts doubt on the ease with which some security experts disregard the influence of forms of government and regime change over surveillance and intelligence. Last, this article adds another angle to the literature on Romania, an understudied country, to show that post-communist intelligence services have not completely accepted democratic norms thirty years after the regime change.
[P]ost-communist intelligence services have not completely accepted democratic norms thirty years after the regime change.
Our interest in intelligence services in Romania is rooted in our previous research. Lavinia Stan’s research interest and contribution in understanding transitional justice and communist history was complemented by Marian Zulean’s research interest in civil-military relations and democratic control of armed forces. The opportunity to work together was triggered by the call for papers on “Surveillance in Post-Communist Societies” and the invitation issued by Ola Svenonius (Stockholm University) and Fredrika Björklund (Södertörn University) to write this article. We worked together and critically discussed the argument at the “#Romania 100: Looking Forward through the Past” conference organized by the Society for Romanian Studies in summer 2018 in Bucharest.
