Democratization from Within: Political Culture and the Consolidation of Democracy in Post-Communist Albania

✍ Scribed by Florian Çullhaj

• Publisher: Nuova Cultura
• Year: 2016
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 303
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

The study of the political culture paradigm has never been developed conceptually or methodologically in the academic environment of pre-and-post-communist Albania. In the early communist period, direct studies on this concept – i.e., scientific studies initiated from domestic scholars outside the leading guide of Marxism-Leninism theories – were absolutely forbidden by the ideological viewpoint of the regime. Social sciences and especially political science was seen by the regime as bourgeois science and for ideological reasons political science was excluded from its activities as an academic discipline. The regime restrictions on empirical information limited the heuristic power of the theories that could ipso facto have been utilized by the domestic scholars in today’s research activities. Consequently, limited data resulting from historical arguments and speculation based only on scant evidence led to studies mostly in the publicist realm with a strong ideological viewpoint. Following the change of political regime, these restrictions affected the new generation of political culture researchers in Albania. Scholars from this generation, generally employed investigative tools (that is, largely survey methods) that mostly could not delve into the conceptual complexities and internal contradictions of political culture theories without any literary legacy on this subject. Moreover, foreign scholars’ accomplishments lacked contextual understanding, whereas those of domestic scholars were over simplified and based on generalized assumptions mostly inspired by Western style post-communist literature. In this situation, it has been a mandatory task to describe ex nihilo how Albanians grasp the conception of political culture both in its development and in its structure.

This research draws on qualitative methods to implement an interpretive analysis of contemporary Albanian political culture and democracy. Relying on anthropology and sociology for guidance, this investigation engages the depth and complexity of political culture and democracy, integrating the cultural conceptualizations of anthropologists, political scientists as well as sociologists. The main fields of research are the country’s late and somehow incomplete separation from communist values and the country’s problems with today’s corruption and political trust. Based on the findings I will analyze the democratic values to derive historical-theoretical as well as empirical-logical convergences and divergences which have
influenced Albanian political values.

✦ Table of Contents

Contents
Preface......................................................................................................14
Chapter 1 - Investigating Albanian History. A Heritage of Profound Heterogeneity..............................................................................21
1.1 Authoritarian Ottoman Legacy; Myth or Reality.......................21
1.2 Declaration of Independence and Prince Wied Govern-ance...................................................................................................26
1.3 Social Condition..............................................................................28
1.4 The ‘Democratic’ Revolution........................................................30
1.5 Ahmet Zogu Period and the Effort for Stability.........................32
1.6 Albania in the World War II and the Ascension to Power of the Communist Party............................................................................40
1.7 Transition to Democracy................................................................58
Conclusions......................................................................................64
Chapter 2 - Political Culture and Democratization in Communist and Post-Communist Albania..............................................................67
2.1 Employing the Concept of Political Culture...............................68
2.1.2 The Variable of Political Culture in Political Sci-ence...................................................................................................73
2.1.3 Marxist Influence.....................................................................79
2.2 Experience under Communist Rule in Albania.........................82
2.2.1 Socialization under Communism..........................................89
2.3 Democratization in the Post-Communist Albania a Country Turned in a ‘Stabilocracy’..............................................................98
2.3.1 State Democratization...........................................................100
2.3.2 Accountability........................................................................102
2.3.3 Political Parties and Elections..............................................106
2.3.4 Today’s Elite Governance under
Authoritarian Legacies.........................................................112
2.3.5 External Actors and the European Dream.........................117
Conclusions............................................................................125
Chapter 3 - The Problematics of Survey Research. Political Attitude Studies During the Transition to Democracy in Post-Communist Albania...................................................................................................136
3.1 A Survey of Surveys: Findings, Trends and Contextual.........137
3.2 Shortcomings Surveying Albania...............................................140
3.2.1 The Uncritical Employment of Western
Theories...................................................................................153
3.2.2 The 1998’s World Values Survey
Investigation...........................................................................158
3.2.3 Investigating the Dynamics of Value. The 2004
Survey.....................................................................................164
3.2.4 Investigating the Dynamics of Value. The 2008
Survey.....................................................................................167
3.2.5 Public Opinions on the Perception of Democracy.
Investigating Communist and Post-communist
attitudes..................................................................................172
3.2.6 Investigating the Dynamics of Value. The 2012
Survey.....................................................................................178
3.3 A Critical Approach to Survey Methods...................................179
3.4 Beyond Survey Methods..............................................................185
Conclusions....................................................................................201
Chapter 4 - Authentic democratic values?........................................204
4.1 A Short History of the Kanun of Lekë Dukagjini.........................209
4.2 The Clashes of Ethics................................................................... 223
4.3 Inside Kanun’s Structural Ethic. Looking for the ‘Spirit of Democracy’.........................................................................................232
15
4.4 ‘Group-Responsibility’ in Lieu of Individual Accountability...............................................................................................244
4.5 The ‘Spirit of Democracy’ and Kanun’s Dissonances..............250
4.6 Investigating Religious Cohabitation in Albania.....................256
4.6.1 Legal Mentality......................................................................256
4.6.2 Language and Ethnic Homogeneity the Cohabitation Initi-ators.................................................................................................260
4.7 The Interwar Albanian Intellectual Discourses. Preconditions for a Democratic Future Conclusion..........................................263
Conclusions....................................................................................271
Conclusions...........................................................................................276
Bibliography..........................................................................................287
Figures
1. Post-Communist divergence in Attitude....................................71
2. The Incongruence between the model of the interiorized totali-tarian state and its reality explained with the graphic model elaborated by Lieury, Magourou, Louboutin and Fenouilet........................................................................................149
Tables
1. The Sixth Edition of the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index.......................................................................................123