Discussing the political survival of Romanian ministers since 1989—Do economic conditions matter?

Abstract

Political longevity in young democracies has attracted the attention of scholars and practitioners alike due to several particular characteristics of such democracies, such as a low level of trust, a low level of credibility, corruption, economic difficulties, a less well-established rule of law and an increased bureaucracy. In such a context, we studied the tenure duration of Romanian ministers since 1989, as well as their accumulated political longevity in ministerial offices. Using proportional hazards regression, we observed some peculiarities in the young Romanian democracy in comparison with more established regimes. We observed that left-wing majorities tend to increase the probability of seat changes and thus diminish tenure longevity. We also observed that good economic conditions may lead to the substitution of certain types of ministries, while higher inflation rates tend to shorten tenure longevity for Romanian ministers. Moreover, our estimations support the finding that Romanian ministers tend to have shorter tenures as the number of past ministerial functions increases and that the burden of simultaneously managing various ministries significantly contributes to the shorter political longevity of a given minister. Finally, recent ministers have had longer tenures than those in the first years after the fall of communism in Eastern Europe in 1989. 64 | MOURAO And POPESCU 1 | INTRODUCTION Politicians in democratic regimes do not maintain their political functions for their entire lives. Although some politicians accumulate more days in functions with intercalated tenures, their political longevity tends to be significantly shorter than that of their counterparts in autocratic regimes. Due to their essential characteristic of renewing the ruling class through elections, democracies do not grant 'eternal [political] lives' to their politicians. Some politicians in democratic regimes are especially likely to be replaced; this is the case for ministers. Ministers tend to be the visible face of large groups of officers that support the ministers' actions. Therefore, ministers tend to be held particularly responsible for the successes or failures of their cabinets. If a prime minister's image is tarnished or damaged, he or she tends to become the target of specific charges, particularly following severe crises. This paper will reflect upon the political longevity of Romanian ministers in the democratic period that began in 1989. There are several motivations for our work. First, young democracies-especially Eastern European democracies-exhibit particular features that may enrich the literature on political longevity. Given the youth of their political institutions, these democracies may give politicians certain responsibilities that are not so common in established political systems. Second, no integrated empirical attempt has been made with this number of individuals involved in work for the Romanian democracy (or even for any Eastern European democracy). Third, as already noted in the Abstract, we conclu...