Habersack, Sabine - Puşcaş, Vasile - Ciubotă, Viorel (szerk.): Democraţia in Europa centrală şi de Sud-Est - Aspiraţie şi realitate (Secolele XIX-XX) (Satu Mare, 2001)
Camil Mureşan: Câteva consideraţii cu privire la evoluţia democratică în Centrul şi Sud-Estul Europei
Camil Mureşan Considerations Concerning the Democratical Evolution in Central and South-Eastern Europe (1850-1914) After 1850, democracy became the dominant regime in several states, however with a fluctuating intensity. Inside this process, there were two areas: the Habsburg Monarchy and the area of Serbia, Muntenegru, Romania, Bulgaria and Greece. The political differences between them, even if not fundamental, were notable. The Habsburg Monarchy was a huge power, with a large territory (the second one in Europe) and a numerous population (third on the continent). It had regional inequalities: the western areas were in the phase of industrial capitalism, while the eastern areas were agrarian, with late feudal structures. Its features were born 150 years before. It had an international authority and a consolidated political and administrative institutions. It had the experience of political construction and of the regional outings. It had contacts with Occident and with entire international politic concert. It was penetrated by Enlightenment, with perceptible results. The states and people from South-East Europe were, in several respects, in different situation. The smallest of them, Muntenegru, in a paradoxical way, remained independent “de facto”, the situation became official only in XIX-th century. Greece became independent between 1822- 1830, Romania and Serbia in 1878 and Bulgaria in 1908. Albania, after proclaiming its independence in 1912, was in a confuse political situation for few years, without a definite political status. Another specific feature of these countries is that while Central Europe, after the revolutionary earthquake from 1848-1849 was focusing on stages political reformism, South-Eastern Europe was “plunging” on the same way, but by “fits and starts”. There was a reason for this politic instability, even violence, symptoms of the shallow implantation of democratic institutions. The Habsburg Monarchy icluded, inside its borders, a big number of nations. During XVIII-th century, they will discover own politic and national endeavours. Monarchy reforms will alternate between federative and centralized formulas, with accent on the first one. In South-Eastern Europe, ethnical composition was relatively unitary, on a limited territory. These two circumstances encouraged nationalism - monocoloured, exclusivist and violent - leading to a central politic organization. Where the ethnic pluralism was emphasized, it was 26
