Transition has ended formally, but practically not yet
By Edlira Majko
The Albanian Institute for International Studies and its partners organized in the end of October the international conference “Twenty Years After: Rethinking Democracy and State in Albania” where you were one of the keynote speakers. What are your impressions from the conference and the topics covered in it?
The conference was highly successful and impressive. It raised many relevant questions, which will become crucial also in the near future. The seven panels addressed topics such as the promises, achievements and failures of transition, the political and economic aspects of transformation, the character of Albania’s democracy, and the transformation of a totally isolated country to an active player in the region as well as the country’s European integration perspectives. About 30 speakers were present during the two-day conference. All of them were either outstanding political, economic experts and analysts of the Balkans and Albania or highly relevant scholars in the field of Albanology. Of the first group the former President of Albania, Rexhep Meidani, should be mentioned; among the Albanologists, I would like to mention Prof. Bernd Fischer from Indiana University/USA, who has been contributing significantly to the historiography of Albania.
It is impossible to summarize the results of the conference adequately because of the variety of questions discussed. Therefore, I would like to emphasize only one aspect of the transformation period: Albania started into this period under very harsh internal and external conditions. The communists passed over the poorest country of Europe to the emerging democratic forces. The country had to suffer under one of the most absurd communist systems in the world. Whatever the country has achieved or has failed to achieve – one should not forget this.
You are one of the few foreign researchers who have visited Albania during the communist regime. What was Albania back then for a foreigner?
I was 33 years old, when I first visited Albania in November 1987 based on an official agreement between Albania and Austria. My first contact with Albanian soil was on the airport. The Rinas airport was cute. My first impression on the journey to Tirana: a very, very poor country and a very, very poor population; transportation mainly by horses and oxen. I was ghettoized in Hotel “Tirana”. The second ghetto for foreign visitors was Hotel “Dajti”. I wanted to enter a public bar, but the people indicated that I was not welcome. The whole city was a pedestrian zone; there were almost no cars, and only two traffic lights exist. I walked frequently through the capital of Albania, which was far from a metropolis. Coming from Austria, I had the feeling of visiting another planet. Someone must have turned back time for at least half of a century. This started with appearance and outfit of the population. Strolling through the streets, people steered clear of me and gazed on me, as if I was coming from another planet. I felt unhappy. The unhappiest thing was that I could not speak with ordinary people. Later I discovered that people, who addressed foreigners, could have been sentenced with up to seven years of jail. Frustrating! The highlight in this regard was three young women in the streets of Tirana, obviously students, whom I passed by. One of them looked at me, said, “How are you?” in English. They laughed and run away.
And, what is Albania for you nowadays? How has Albania changed in these 20 years?
The country’s profile has changed in almost every aspect in the course of the previous twenty years or so. It is losing its unique character among the European countries due to modernization processes, its integration into international market economy, its integration into the European and international political structures and its international migration. It has to be emphasized that this “uniqueness” had to be paid by the country’s and the population’s isolation from the rest of the world. In my opinion, to overcome this status of isolation has been the most important change in Albania. I think that for younger Albanian generations it is hard to imagine living in quarantine. I remember the year of 1990, when the young people had only one desire: to leave the country and to see the world, to dress themselves with “usual” shirts and jeans. They wanted to become “normal” Europeans. Well, several months later the door to the world was open. The world was much different than expectations based on Italian TV shows. Twenty years after, a significant portion of the active labor population has left the country – temporarily or forever. I think migration has changed the country much more than any Albanian government. The influx of goods, concepts, ideas, and money should not be underestimated.
What is your opinion of Albania’s current situation of democracy?
Since I am only a sporadic visitor of the country, I cannot provide with profound answers to this question. Basically speaking, it was much easier to establish formal democracy than a functioning market economy. The quality of democracy depends from the general political culture in a country. The political culture is primarily shaped by the political elites and not o much by the ordinary population. One of the basic questions is whether the elites desire to serve the state and the public interests or the state is designated to serve the elites. In the Albanian case, the latter is the case. This holds also true for the neighboring countries, but the Albanian case is much more pronounced. Approximately ten years ago, I conducted an analysis of Albania’s political culture and presented it at a conference in Germany. The title of my paper was “The winner takes it all, the loser has to fall”. This means that the respective ruling political party has full access to the revenues of the state and exploits them, whereas the opposition is excluded from this access. This opens the door for clientelism and nepotism. Albania’s political culture is primarily shaped by clientelistic and nepotistic thinking and not by different Weltanschauungen of the political parties and therefore, secondly, by incredible sharp confrontations between the political parties.
Can we say for sure that the Albanian transition, meaning the replacement of the totalitarian state regime with a democratic state and the transformation of a centralized economy to a market economy, has already ended?
Formally yes, but practically not yet. As already mentioned above, formal democracy with its representative bodies had been established already at the beginning of the transition period. However, this does not mean that the political life of the country is shaped by a modern form of democracy. One characteristic of a modern democracy is its non-authoritarian content. In a modern democracy, a political party may receive more than 50% of votes on the election day, but despite this cannot rule the country in an autocratic way. It cannot overrule the interests of civil society and of other organized interests in society (trade unions, organized public civil servants, the representative bodies of tradesmen, farmers etc. etc.). A balance of power has to be observed. This is obviously not the case in Albania, where each of the ruling parties tries to establish an autocratic rule. This is not the fault of the parties alone, but also a failure of society, which has not been able to establish effective civil-societal structures. This has also to with the communist past. The communists destroyed even the very embryo of a civil society.
The transformation of economy from central dirigisme to free market economy has been doubtlessly concluded. However, one big problem still exists: the weakness of the public market; the consumers’ purchasing power is low and the share of the black market is relatively high. The low purchasing power is due to the high unemployment rate; the unemployment rate is high because of the weakly developed economy; the economy is weak because of its low production capacity. Foreign investments are also low-scale. The only dynamic economic factor is the Albanian migration and its remittances. Remittances, however, are decreasing because of the economic crisis in the West.
Can you draw a balance sheet of Albania’s main achievements and failures in these past 20 years?
Albania could have achieved much more in the course of the previous two decades. The political crisis caused by the long lasting pyramid scheme in 1997 is symptomatic. This kind of money making was so comfortable for everybody: for the government, for the population and for those, who organized it. From my perspective, it was incredible that the government did not intervene immediately, and it is much more unbelievable that the primarily responsible prime minister for this public criminal period could and can act again in this position. This is not normal and moral. I don’t want to blame Albania’s society, but, unfortunately, what 1997 happened is a pronounced characteristic of Albania’s way in the course of the transition period. Mini-1997s happen every day. As long as this happens, a positive balance sheet cannot be drawn. What remains as a positive result is Albania’s international and regional position – especially in the Kosova-crisis and in the Macedonian turmoil. This was also expressed at the conference by various speakers. However, this is too little for a realistic EU-integration perspective. Speakers at the conference calculated at least a 20 years qualifying period until a possible access to the EU. I agree. But instead of using the term “qualifying period” I would prefer the phrase “catharsis period”.
Karl Kaser – Since October 1980, he has been involved in research and teaching in the Centre for Southeast European Studies of the Institute for History of the University of Graz, where he was appointed Professor in 1996. Since 1998, he has been the director of the Center for the Study of Balkan Societies and Cultures. His research focuses on the history of gender relations, family and migration. His recent publications include: Macht und Erbe. M寮erherrschaft, Besitz und Familie im
