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2. What is the effect on economic growth and development within Romania of the level of foreign investment within the country's economy since December 1989?
The political changes that began to occur in the Eastern Europe socialist bloc in the summer of 1989 were more than anything else a rejection of one-party rule. In the Eastern European socialist bloc countries such as Romania, Communist Party parliamentary majorities had been constitutionally institutionalized (Hunter, 1994, pp. 1121-1123). With an institutionalized parliamentary majority, the Romanian Communist parties manipulated the power of government to repress political dissent, and to impose a rigid centrally-planned economic regime. The more-or-less peaceful political revolutions that occurred in the Eastern European socialist countries, including Romania, represented a rejection of one-party government and particularly institutionalized one-party rule to a much greater extent than they represent a rejection of socialism per se. This assessment is particularly relevant to the situation in Romania where the former Communist party regained political control of the government in the general election in the Spring of 1994 (Romania looks, 1994, p. 4).
To be sure, however, great dissatisfaction existed and continues to exist among the Romanian population with both Communism specifically and socialism generally. The political and economic systems that replaced communism and socialism, however, have not yet realized their promise in Romania (Ionescu, 1994, pp. 28-34). The political system that was displaced in Romania was institutionalized one-party rule. As it happens, the institutionalized party that was displaced was the Communist Party of Romania.
For more than 40 years in the Eastern European socialist states including Romania, citizens had become accustomed to highly disciplined, orderly societies. Regardless of the fact that the discipline and order w...