“Stripped of All Phrases”. Romanian Politics and Romanian National Expenditures

This article attempts to link ‘who governs’ in Romania with ‘what they do when governing’. It utilizes time series analysis of actual expenditures since the revolution, and examines the division of outlays between national budgets and local authority budgets; between capital, current, and transfer allocations; and across the various substantive purposes for state expenditure. The main hypotheses are that the government in power, the political party of the Prime Minister who heads that government, the incentives of electoral law, and the timing of the election cycle should all prove statistically relevant, causing visible deflections from long-term expenditure trends. Most often, however, no systematic variation is observed, raising questions about the degree of actual representation.