Territorial Fragmentation in Post-Communist Romania: Between Political Opportunity and Policy Rationalities

The drive towards more efficiency in local government usually brings into discussion the need to create larger municipalities via amalgamation. In the opposite direction, those arguing in favor of strengthening local democracy often make a case for smaller local governments. Nevertheless, much of the academic debates these days seems to be centered on the amalgamation of local governments. This is supported by numbers, as in practice there is still a strong trend towards amalgamation and larger local governments. This trend seems to have escaped Romania, where we find a significant increase in the number of local governments post-1989 as a result of rural first tier local governments splitting into smaller units. Upon preliminary examination, this seems to be explained by the bottom-up pressure to erase some of the effects of the heavy-handed amalgamation reforms of the Communist regime and the enabling framework created by the central government in early 2000 in response. However, splitting or merging local governments equals a redistribution of political power, with leaders and parties standing to win or lose, case in which economic, administrative, social, and cultural rationalities might become secondary. This paper examines the process of change and the options faced by both the central government and relevant local actors in relation to the splits of local governments which have occurred in Romania between 1998 and 2018. It is particularly interested in exploring the extent to which splitting local governments is associated with opportunistic political behavior on behalf of national or local actors. The paper is built upon an analysis of official documents concerning the 230 local government splits which have occurred since 1998, as well as in-depth interviews with political actors.