Capitalism from Outside?: Economic Cultures in Eastern Europe after 1989

Cloning or Hybridization? SAPARD in Romania

Cloning or Hybridization? SAPARD in Romania Florian Niţu Introduction Europeanization, understood both in terms of process and outcome, is a complex phenomenon manifested at many levels, following very different patterns of interaction and “hybridization” (Ladrech 1994, Börzel and Risse 2003, Goetz 2001). It can be controlled, deliberate, planned, and top-down; or conversely, incremental, organic, and spontaneous . It can lead to both radical and superficial changes, it can be protracted or efficient, or more likely, it can incorporate all these features . This case study will analyze the SAPARD program (Special Accession Program for Agriculture and Rural Development) with an interest in exploring the conditions that made SAPARD a “special and successful” project within the Romanian institutional environment. As a result of an intense process of cultural exchange and negotiation between the two actors, SAPARD became a structure of integration, incorporating characteristics of both sides. Within the larger landscape of Europeanization, SAPARD is a planned and controlled hybridization process, “re-orienting the direction and shape of politics to the extent that EC political and economic dynamics become part of the organizational logic of national politics and policy making” (Ladrech 1994, 69). SAPARD in Romania provided an extensive opportunity for interaction between individual Western and Eastern actors, institutions, norms, regulations, standards, and cultural habits. As a pre-accession program, it represented an adaptive effort made by Romanian actors in order to create the political, legal, institutional, and administrative systems needed for its appropriate implementation. SAPARD presented multiple challenges: a political challenge (preparation for accession to European Union); an economic challenge (supporting the development of rural Romania and reducing the difference between rural and urban areas); an institutional challenge (creating institutional arrangements for the proper implementation of the program); and a cultural challenge (promoting rural entrepreneurship and reforming the administrative culture of public institutions). Thus, SAPARD can be perceived as a complex and multifaceted program. Our approach to this complexity of challenges builds on a larger social exchange theory based on several schools of thoughts. Anthropological concepts like acculturation, cultural diffusion, assimilation, and hybridization, along with other more controversial concepts like cultural imperialism and colonization (used to criticize the process of the European extension and Europeanization), are very useful in understanding the cultural compatibilities and disparities between the actors involved (Mihăilescu 2006). From this perspective, SAPARD can be described as a “contact/hybridization zone” between East and West, as a zone where exchanges between the two sides were forced to take place at a higher intensity and in a quasi-predefined form (the official negotiation processes). As such, SAPARD represents a micro-system where the Europeanization process can be understood in both its blueprint form and its natural patterns of interaction. The public policy approach, with its focus on the formulation, development , implementation, and evaluation of policy programs, represents another framework worth examining. Out of the many theories of policy formulation, we will elaborate here on two main models: the policy-diffusion model and the advocacy coalition model (Sabatier 1999). As SAPARD is, by origin, an EU program, disseminated in all Eastern European countries on the road to EU accession, the dissemination and diffusion model seems to be an appropriate one. This approach considers Europeanization as a transfer process where policy programs emerging at EU level are transplanted to the accession countries (Ladrech 1994). This perspective raises the issues of transfer determinants, imitation , innovation diffusion, and transfer barriers as key topics to be explored. The advocacy coalition model also builds on social exchange theory and views policy development primarily as a result of interaction and negotiation between various actors. The international assistance and development approach, extensively used to critically assess developmental intervention conducted by international agencies in less developed countries, provides another useful framework. Its focus on assistance, capacity-building, institutional development, and cultural sensitivity demands consideration. This approach, traditionally used to explore the North-South dynamic, due to its focus on the developmental actor (the EU, in our case), 150 Florian Niţu offers an instrumental perspective and raises the traditional issues of power relations, imposed vs. voluntary development, legitimacy, and sustainability of intervention. Based on such considerations, this paper will explore the following main issues: – the degree to which SAPARD is a hybrid outcome, – the degree to which SAPARD is a successful program, – the determinants of success and failure, and – the patterns of interaction between the EU and Romania. The above issues were studied by means...