On the way to modernization: ‘good enough’ governance in Romania

‘Good enough’ governance directs attention to considerations of the minimal conditions of governance necessary to allow political and economic development to occur. This paper makes use of this definition and considers ‘good enough’ governance as being a set of minimum requirements necessary for the proper (democratic) functioning of a state. In addition, it narrows the context where ‘governance’ applies, and solely refers to the organization and functioning of the public administration system. To this end, Robert Dahl's theory of democratization will provide the appropriate framework for ‘quantifying’ ‘good enough’ governance, and will then be applied to the Romanian public administration reforms (1998–2007). The authors expect to find that during the time of reference, Romania did have the proper conditions for nurturing ‘good enough’ governance.