Democratisation and Institutional Reform in Albania

Elvin Gjevori

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9783319730707
• eBook ISBN:
  9783319730714
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: European Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Albania's democratic transition – one of the longest and most arduous of post-communist Europe – has failed to produce consolidated institutions. Therefore, this book undertakes the first comprehensive review of Albania's military and judicial reform – from 1992 to 2009 – to ascertain why military reform produced substantial institutionalisation and judicial reform did not. The author analyses the different outcomes by outlining how political elites constructed the interests that shaped their subsequent political actions. Overall, this book presents a novel theoretical account for institutionalisation in emerging democracies and sheds light on two of Albania's most important democratisation reforms. The book will appeal to practitioners working on institutionalisation reforms, institutionalist and democratisation researchers interested in post-authoritarian transitions, and area study scholars focusing on Albania and the Western Balkans.

© The Author(s) 2018

Elvin GjevoriDemocratisation and Institutional Reform in AlbaniaNew Perspectives on South-East Europehttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73071-4_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction

Elvin Gjevori¹

(1)

European University of Tirana, Tirana, Albania

End Abstract

In 1991 after hundreds of thousands of Albanians had broken into foreign embassies, crossed the snowy mountains into Greece, and used every possible floating device to go to Italy, they left behind more who were poor, hungry, and helpless. The situation was so dire and chaos so rampant that Albania could not even distribute the humanitarian aid provided to it by Western European countries. As a result, Italy undertook mission ‘Pelican’ through which it deployed its armed forces and transport regiments to distribute Albania’s humanitarian aid. It was the first time in decades that foreign troops set foot in Albania and would not be the last.

In 1997, after months of increasingly violent anti-government protests, the Albanian military disintegrated, its armaments were looted, thousands of people were killed, and the country was on the edge of a civil war. Just like in 1991 Albanians took to the sea in ships, speedboats, and even military destroyers to go to Italy and escape the violence. To stop the chaos and the new wave of immigration, under Italy’s leadership and supported by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1011, thousands of European troops were deployed to Albania to guarantee the safe distribution of aid and assist in the re-establishment of public order.

In 1999, when Albania was still recovering from the 1997 tragedy, the Kosovo crisis threatened to engulf it in a regional conflict. As a result, with war on its border, 500,000 Kosovar refugees in its territory, and a destroyed military, for the third time Albania accepted foreign troops under NATO’s ‘AFOR’ (Albania Force) mission . The reason was the same: distribute humanitarian aid, assist in the maintenance of public order, and defend Albania’s border. Eight years after the fall of communism Albania had been on the brink of collapse three times, and three times foreign military assistance had been required.

In 2009, in its headquarters in Brussels, NATO raised Albania’s flag in recognition of its status as a member of the Alliance. Ten years after NATO troops were used to defend Albania’s border and 12 years after the Albanian military disintegrated with devastating consequences, Albania became a member of the most powerful military alliance in the world. A remarkable turnaround, but not a unique one. Many countries have managed to institutionalise in spite of a discouraging history and daunting obstacles. However, scholars still lack an understanding of how this process works. Why do some countries succeed? Why do certain institutions fail? To understand how this process happens, this book proposes a novel theoretical explanation of institutionalisation and tests it on the Albanian case. As I shall show, Albania has a special appeal for students of institutionalisation.

1.1 A Question of Institutionalisation

After the collapse of communism in 1990–1991, Albania’s new, pro-democracy regime was faced with the daunting task of rebuilding a country that was financially bankrupt and morally dispirited. Besides market reforms , which turned upside-down the life and value systems of Albanians, one major theatre of change dealt with the armed forces and the judiciary . Since these institutions had been instrumental to the communist regime’s capacity to suppress opposition and provide a façade of legitimacy, military and judicial reforms were seen as an integral part of the democratisation process. Although military and judicial reform started simultaneously, under similar conditions, and implemented by almost the same political class, they took different directions. The reform of the armed forces culminated with Albania’s 2009 NATO accession, while judicial reform lagged behind and became one of the major impediments to advancing Albania’s European Union (EU) integration. Therefore, the central issue this book examines is: Why, considering the similarities, did Albania succeed to institutionalise its armed forces and not the judiciary?

Clearly, this book tackles a problem of institutionalisation, which Johan Olsen (2009) defines as:

A slow process of accumulation and transformation of practices and rules […] structuralization and routinization of behaviour; standardization, homogenization and authorization of codes of meaning and ways of reasoning; and it means linking resources to values and world views. Authority and power are depersonalized, and resource mobilization and principles of resource allocation are routinized. (5)

It is important to note that this book conceptualises institutionalisation as a matter of degree. Most institutions, under any regime , are partially institutionalised as they follow rules , are somewhat differentiated from the external environment , and have a reasonably defined targeted behaviour and varying degrees of effectiveness . However, new institutions that lack experience, resources , and political support are under-institutionalised. So most institutionalisation studies, this included, analyse how institutions go from being under -institutionalised to ‘properly’ so. Throughout the book, to avoid repetition, un-institutionalised, unstructured, unsettled , unconsolidated will be used interchangeably as meaning under -institu-tionalised.

So why did the armed forces institutionalise while the judiciary did not? Since the military and judiciary shared a common history of profound politicisation during communism , one would expect them to develop similarly in the post-authoritarian transition. In addition, since these reforms started almost simultaneously in 1991 and in the 1990s suffered from the same symptoms of politicisation , nepotism, and corruption , one would be even more inclined to expect them to continue developing similarly. Nevertheless, despite the similarities during communism and early transition, from 2000 onwards there was progress towards institutionalisation in the armed forces while the judiciary lagged behind. The question therefore comes naturally: why did this happen?

Besides shedding light on the mechanisms that affected military and judicial institutionalisation from 1992 to 2009, this book holds significant pertinence for current developments. In July 2016 Albania approved the most sweeping post-communist judicial reform since its 1998 constitution. After years of wrangling, and under intense pressure from the Unites States and the European Union , the Albanian Assembly unanimously approved judicial reform , which rewrote one third of the constitution, granted the international community significant leverage regarding its implementation, overhauled the governance of the judiciary , and its relationship with the executive, and threatened to remove most judges and prosecutors who would have to undergo a strict vetting of their professional and moral fitness to serve. Among the members of parliament (MP) who voted for it were some who had vehemently opposed judicial reform and many more with criminal records who stood to lose from a professional and institutionalised judiciary .

The implementation of the current round of judicial reform will take full effect in 2018 and will continue for years, and a full examination by researchers will come in due time. However, despite being outside this book’s scope, the findings presented here can provide a useful framework for ascertaining the current judicial reform’s trajectory. By gaining an understanding as to why Albanian political elites failed to reach agreement on judicial reform for 17 years, we can grasp the mechanisms most likely to impact the direction of the current judicial reform . Importantly, by identifying the mechanisms that enabled Albanian elites to agree on military institutionalisation , we can identify the elements to look for in evaluating whether the current judicial reform is on the way to producing meaningful institutionalisation. Overall, then, besides explaining the differing paths the judiciary and military took from 1992 to 2009, this book provides a potentially suitable framework through which to evaluate Albania’s current judicial reform .

1.2 Institutionalist Theories and Institutionalisation

Since this book ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction
• 2. An Overview of the Military and Judiciary in Albania
• 3. Mainstream Institutionalist Approaches
• 4. A New Account of Institutionalisation
• 5. Conceptualisation and Measurement
• 6. Newspaper Coverage and Parliamentary Debate of Judicial Reform
• 7. Newspaper Coverage of Military Reform
• 8. Parliamentary Debate of Military Reform
• 9. Conclusions and Implications
• Back Matter