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Transition Period in Albania:

Historic, Economic and Cultural Legacies of the Past and the Challenges of the Present

Published at: Fryma e Filozofise, May 2005

Albania is considered one of the weakest of the former communist states and one that has been amongst the least successful in negotiating the transition to democracy. In Albania the communist regime collapsed in 1990, providing the opportune conditions for the process of democratisation and transformation. Change came as a result of a “velvet revolution”, as in most of the other countries of the eastern communist block, avoiding, in this way, the bloodshed of similar scenarios such as Tienanmen Square or Romania. Because of the determination of the Albanian old communist caste not to follow the other CEE countries in their path towards democratic reforms and to open up, and because of terrible isolation and lack of information about what was going on in the rest of Europe (most Albanians did not even know that the Berlin Wall had fallen), the wind of change started to blow late in Albania. It started with the “invasions” of foreign embassies in the summer of 1990, followed by the students’ movement (their protests and hunger strikes), street demonstrations and protests by the masses (mainly in Tirana) and in 1991 with a nation-wide strike of workers. Finally, the last bastion of Stalinism fell in 1991 (officially on the 4^th of June with the resignation of the last communist government headed by Fatos Nano), bringing to an end forty seven years of communist rule in Albania.

According to Pridham (2000:16) democratisation is the whole process of regime change from totalitarian rule to the setting up of a new liberal democracy. It is a multi-stage and multi-dimensional process, which involves: authoritarian regime collapse, pre-transition liberalisation, democratic transition, democratic consolidation and, finally, the entrenchment of liberal democracy. It is clear that Albania, while it has embarked on the early phases of transition, is having difficulties in reaching the final stages. This is as a result of certain historic, economic and cultural legacies.

In terms of the economic legacy, Albania had a very low socio-economic starting point in the ‘90s with a background as the poorest country in Europe. Albania came out from communism as a very backward country, where feudal-medieval features were combined with those of a paranoid communist regime. The extreme poverty, a consequence of the principle of self-reliance, was justified by the internal propaganda of “we Albanians would prefer to eat grass than to sell our principles”. The economy and society in general depended on a Spartan egalitarianism (emphasied especially after the Cultural Revolution in the ‘60s) and on the Marxist-Leninst dogmatic ideology, which preached “the triumph of the proletarian revolution”. 

The historical legacy is firstly a consequence of being under communism for almost 50 years. Albania endured one of the toughest dictatorships in the communist bloc, being considered Europe’s most Stalinist country. There was an extreme degree of totalitarianism which attempted to control every aspect of life. Albania was considered a “special case” or truly an “exception”, even within the communist bloc. This was also a result of its self-imposed international isolation. "Fortress Albania" with its "sealed" borders was one of the most isolated countries in the world, never mind Europe. Isolation was the keynote of Albania’s foreign policy during the communist period. This meant that for decades Albania was cut off from any kind of economic, political and cultural links with the outside world, being turned into a “gigantic prison”, with its people “locked” inside barbed wire fences. This pathological isolation imposed by a xenophobic communist dictatorship prohibited the free movement of people and information (media, literature and art) and did not allow the existence of any international organisations in the country until 1991. What was striking was the fact that Albania isolated itself not only by the Western world, but equally from the communist camp as well. Because of this bizarre isolation, Albania was viewed by most westerners with mystery and curiosity. The paranoia of being surrounded by “external enemies” was used to justify isolation and hardships and to litter the country with tens of thousands of concrete bunkers (around 400.000), in an imaginary war and defence, mainly against “Soviet revisionism and American imperialism”. Albania became a maverick country and when the curtains fell, the self-proclaimed “the light phare of Europe” was nothing more than a contemporary hell.

There was, however, an important longer-term historical dimension, the division between the so-called Visegrád states and those that had been under the Russian or Ottoman Empires. Visegrad countries share some of the history of Western Europe and went through experiences such as the Reformation, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, 19^th century urbanisation and nationalism and may even have had some limited experiences of democracy. They therefore promptly evolved into successful western democracies. The transition for these countries, as Kaplan argues (2004) “was relatively easy because the countries boasted high literacy rates, exposure to the Enlightement under Prussian and Hapsburg emperors and strong industrial bases and middle classes prior to WWII and the cold war”. The other group of countries (where Albania is included) have not had this experience, having been part of the Russian or the Ottoman Empires before being ruled by extreme-right regimes in the period between the two world wars or being annexed by the Soviet empire. Therefore the idea that western-style democracy could be developed further south in the Balkans, has proved more challenging and problematic. It is the first group of countries that have been able to draw on these historical affinities to adapt themselves to the political, economic and social conditions necessary for joining the European Union, as specified by the Copenhagen criteria. Second, the experience of communist rule for forty years or more left all of the countries in a dire state politically and economically, although, again, there were differences among them, with Hungary, for example, having initiated economic reforms already during the communist period, or Poland, where the Catholic Church provided a strong counter culture to the ruling Communist Party.

Albania was for 500 years part of the Ottoman Empire, with its sultanate imperial system and legacy of patrimonial and personalistic rule. From this it inherited under-developed state-society relationships, weak institutional capacity and structures and civil society, and an agrarian, largely feudal country with a great mass of peasantry. Albania then became a semi-feudal authoritarian monarchy until the outbreak of WWII. Even in terms of Marxist ideology, these conditions were unpropitious for the development of a modern socialist society and economy, which presupposes an already developed urban and industrial system, with bourgeois elites capable of carrying through the revolutionary transformation. Instead, the four decades of communist rule, mostly under the dictatorship of Enver Hoxha, who turned the state into a family enterprise, reinforced socio-economic and political backwardness. The communist regime forbade the establishment of political and civic pluralism and democratic institutions (freedom of expression and independence of thought were completely crushed, expressed in a very harsh political persecution), developed a centrally planned and collectivist economy, abolished all forms of private property and all kinds of religions, created a national community and constructed the socialist society "blessed with social and economic equality". For 50 years this grotesque paranoid regime created political, economic and social asymmetries between Albania and the rest of Europe. Albania’s historical legacy of the Ottoman Empire, as well as communism, has been important factors in hindering its successful transition to a modern liberal democracy.

Albania therefore did not have a strong tradition of capitalism and democracy, unlike some of the other transition countries which embarked on the “era of changes” with varying potential levels of these traditions (Bogdani & Loughlin 2004:33). Albania was clearly the country with the longest journey to travel from a rigid Stalinism to democracy. Albania’s task of overcoming this legacy and “catching up” with the West was therefore, immense, even compared to other former communist states.

Therefore, as a result of these two historical obstacles, the concept of democracy reached Albania (and the whole Balkans) at a late stage of modern history. Like the other former communist nations of Eurasia, Albania found itself having to build a system of democratic governance from scratch. In the beginning of the 1990s, Albania started the so-called "dual transformation", which according to Pridham (2000:181) combines political democratisation and economic transformation. Despite its dreadful history of paranoid self-imposed international isolation and dictatorship, Albania got off to a good start in the early years of the transition. The initial phase of transition saw speedy and surprising progress, which won Albania a place among the most advanced former communist countries in terms of the rate and intensity of the reforms. Within a few years democratic institutions were set up and a democratic legal framework was introduced. Albania was accepted as a member of international political and financial institutions such as CoE, IMF, WB, and EBRD. Its foreign policy was oriented towards integration into the EU and North-Atlantic structures. Good results were also seen in the economy over a three-year period, about 70% of the economy was privatised, prices and trade were almost entirely liberalised and tight monetary and fiscal policies led to an admirable micro-economic stability. In 1995, inflation was 7% against 231% in 1991 and the budget deficit was 10% of the GDP compared to 50% for the same years (Ruli & Belortaja 2002:24). The newly emerging private sector proved to be highly dynamic, making the greatest contribution to overall economic growth. During 1993-6, Albania experienced an annual growth rate of 9.5%. The analysis made by foreign experts and institutions during this period considered Albania a special case of successful transition (Zeneli 2003) and it had been seen by many mainstream commentators in the West as a model for post-Communist economic development.

Albania committed itself to political pluralism and on the 31^st of January 1991 the first multi-party elections were held. However, in the political sphere things started to look different. The first democratic party, which won the first truly democratic elections in 1992, the Democratic Party (DP), once in power, rapidly started to abandon the programme of political pluralism and to use undemocratic methods of ruling. Soon the first symptoms of the lack of internal democracy started to be evident within the party: the dialogue and debate were increasingly disregarded, a climate of intolerance developed and factions were banned. On the governing side, the DP established a highly centralised presidential system with a heavy concentration of power in the president, which consequently took the power away from the Parliament and the Executive. As a result the country was turned into an executive presidency instead of a parliamentary democracy, which it was supposed to be according to the existing Constitution. The level of politicisation and nepotism in public administration, the judiciary and all other state institutions was becoming alarming. The authoritarian tendencies also started to appear in the media with censorship soon evident in the press. The oppression of the political opposition began. The mafia proliferated and started to flourish in this terrain. There were also persistent allegations that Albania’s government has been involved in organised crime, including sanctions-busting and drug trading (Duffy:87). The DP, as the communist party before, turned into “one party rule”. Albanian political life returned to a new totalitarianism or another kind of dictatorship.

The failure of the referendum for the constitution in 1994 (the first post-communist constitution) was followed by the 1996 elections, which turned out to be one of the most shameless vote-stealing and manipulated election process ever. The elections showed clearly the resilience of the communist legacy. They were followed by a widespread criticism from the international community: OCSE, the EU, CoE, US State Department, who all contested them and asked for new elections. But the DP ignored them and went on with proclaiming its deep “deserved” victory. The DP paid much for this failure to respond to criticism by international organisations only a year later with the event which gave the final kick to the DP’s rule, the failure of “pyramid schemes”. These financial conglomerates, based on corrupt activities and organised crime had been existent in Albania since 1992, but they flourished especially during 1995-96, a period when thousands of Albanians invested (and then lost) their savings. These schemes were estimated to have accumulated $1 billion and a big proportion of the national capital. No wonder their failure in the beginning of 1997 produced such widespread popular unrest and brought the country to the brick of civil war. The picture then was of a complete freezing of state institutions, an absence of public order, social anarchy and a collective hysteria with acts of violence and destruction, followed by political disruption and economic decline. The country had to start from “ground zero”. Albania managed to recover, but the progress of reforms slowed down.

Therefore, even the political and economic system of Albania established after the onset of democracy has been faulty and problematic. Democracy in Albania is still young, not yet rooted and stabilised, and, therefore, fragile and unstable. Events of 1997 the failure of pyramid schemes, as well as the Kosovo crisis in 1999 (which provoked a huge flow of refugees into Albania), caused serious setbacks.

Therefore, on top of longer and medium-term factors, the main factor that has prevented Albania achieving good results in its attempted reforms has been poor, incompetent and irresponsible political leadership (Bogdani & Loughlin 2004:34). The Socialist Party (SP), which came to power in 1997 after the collapse of pyramid schemes and has been ruling since, has also manifested the same deficiencies in governing the country, as the DP before it. Therefore, the most important obstacle, among many other historic, economic and political legacies, to making a successful transition to democracy, is the nature of the Albanian political system and the political class, which operates that system. Although on paper there is political pluralism, in reality there is a strong inheritance from the communist past, which is reflected in the shortcomings of all the parties, in particular in terms of the internal party democracy. The two main parties, the Socialist Party, which is currently in power, and the Democratic Party, which is the main party of opposition, dominate the political scene, even though surrounded by a number of other smaller satellite parties. Although they are allegedly on the left and right of the political spectrum, in practice, there is little difference in their ideologies, which are largely about obtaining and retaining power by any means. Despite complete failure in running the country, there have been allegations about politicians at the highest levels of politics and government implicated in corruption and maintaining ties with organised crime. When the media criticises the politicians and government for these activities, they are harassed and brought before the courts. Corruption and organised crime, whose levels are high, are the most problematic issues (European Commission 2004). Trafficking of human beings and drug smuggling are among the highest in Europe. Corruption is rife. The judiciary, police and customs officials, who should be tackling these problems, are themselves weak, corrupt and not independent. The Albanian party system resembles what the Italians call the partitocrazia, that is, a system where the political parties colonise every aspect of public life – public administration, the judiciary, local and regional government, as well as economic activities.

Integration into the Euro-Atlantic structures has been, during the transition period, a priority of domestic and foreign policy for the governments of Albania. Albania is now part of the regional framework policy of the Western Balkans for joining the EU, called Stabilisation and Association Process (SAP) and opened the negotiations for a SAP in 2003, but there is little doubt that a lot of work still needs to be done to tackle all the current political, economic and social problems and reform the party system. But there are some positive aspects. The most advanced elements of civil society, knowledge elite, intellectuals, academics, NGOs, the young and educated people and the sizeable Albanian Diaspora, which constitutes a part of the “brain drain”, are aware of the problem and seek to change the situation, even though there is too much to do to speed up the implementation of the political, administrative and judicial reforms that are necessary towards a successful transition and democratisation and to her accession to the EU.

REFERENCES

Bogdani, M. & Loughlin, J. (2004) Albania and the European Union: European Integration and the Prospect of Accession.  Dajti 2000.

Duffy, T. (2000) “Albania: Beyond the Hoxha Legacy”, in Wojciech Kostecki, Katarzyna Zukrowska and Bogdan Goralczyk (eds), Transformations of Post-Communist States. London: Macmillan Press.

European Commission "Albania: Stabilisation and Association Report 2003". Second Annual Report. Brussels, 26.03.2003.

Kaplan, R. “Barren Ground for Democracy” The New York Times, 15 November 2004.

Pridham, G. (2000) The Dynamics of Democratisation: A comparative approach. Continuum: London and NY.

Ruli, G. and Belortaja, S. (2003) "Albania - the difficult road towards lasting growth" in Monitoring Albanian’s path to European Integration.

Zeneli, F "Sektorët prioritarë të ekonomisë dhe investimet e huaja" Shekulli, Tirana. 04 October 2003.