Post-Communism: The Road from Democratic Transition to Democratic Consolidation

If the collapse of communism in Central and Eastern European countries under the tutelage of Moscow received some simultaneity due production chain anticommunist revolution of 1989, the same thing cannot be said about the process of democratic transition and consolidation of democracy. The transition from communism to democracy has been influenced by many factors, conditions and characteristics of each ex-communist countries that have impregnated one direction and pace of political and economic reforms. Similarly, things happen with the consolidation of democracy in the countries of Central and Eastern postcomuniste. The Postcommunist countries experienced practice of democratic regimes often alternating with authoritarian and dictatorial regimes in the period between the two world wars. With this alternation between democracy and authoritarianism or a mix of the two regimes characteristics (under "semi-democratic" or "semi-authoritarian"), none of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe has not enjoyed the benefits of democracy sufficiently strengthened. Romania's democratic consolidation is a process that has been underway accounted for both progress and setbacks in terms of institutionalization and practice of democracy. Election since 1996 and until 2008, all the governments that have held elections, then they have lost. Thus, Romania has recorded four consecutive alternations in power without the people who lost the election to challenge or refuse to leave the government, which is certificate functioning electoral democracy. Romania joined NATO in 2004, concluding the negotiation chapters for EU accession and effective in 2007 are decisive steps towards institutionalization of liberal democracy which implies that democracy as a political system is not "living" only by institutions and resources, but also by values attitudes and behaviors that confirm the validity and stability of the rules of the democratic game.