ABSTRACT
The salaries of Romanian civil servants are so low that, in the absence of any bribe-taking, the bureaucrats would have the lifestyle of the lower middle class in Romania in economic terms. However, the power these bureaucrats wield is that of upper middle class Romanians. This is due to their ability to hold up approval of regulatory processes necessary for the functioning of the private sector. Civil society actors, therefore, are willing to pay bureaucrats for facilitating the processes of meeting government regulations by which the private sector is required to abide. The bureaucrats, in turn, are willing to accept bribes from the private sector so as to convert some of their power into economic gain. Such a relationship of mutual benefit between the Romanian bureaucrats and the private sector in Romania provides a solid and lasting foundation to support corruption. Second, the Romanian bureaucracy is politicized. Third, the Romanian bureaucracy is oversized in relation to other countries in the South Eastern European (SEE) region. These three forces serve to reinforce one another to produce a very substantial proportion of non-transparent activities in Romania, simply because the politicians, private-sector actors who pay bribes, and bureaucrats, all find it in their interest to keep their actions below the range of detection by the radar of transparency, to hide their illegal acts, including those of nepotism. That is what this article is about: (1) corruption and nepotism, (2) lack or transparency, and (3) inertia in implementation of civil service reforms, in Romania. The oversized character of the Romanian bureaucracy further exacerbates the problem of the very slow pace of reform.
