End of Transition, but Failure to Democratize: Democratic Consolidation in Albania Analyzed in the Frame of Political Elite Normative Preference for Democracy

Abstract

Albania is an exceptional case study for exploring democratic consolidation as the country has a unique political history, a sui generis case. This means that the county's history during the last decades consists of various government transitions from autocratic to democratic and yet losing the democratic quality, thus it failed to consolidate the democracy. The main goal is to investigate democratic consolidation process under the frame of political elite’s role and normative preference for democratic consolidation assessment. I will use qualitative analysis involving of theory consuming engaging the questions of, if recently Albania ended a long transition, but still failed to democratize. What are the main trajectories or the path of the future of democratic consolidation? Albanian political elites have lacked good alternatives and clear policies, which has been accompanied by a systematic abuse of power, reflected in poor and ineffective governance and in the failure to implement the promised reforms. Under this assumption, strong and reliable elite’s decision-making are important in explaining the consolidation of democracies but not sufficient to guarantee consolidation. I will try to explore a few aspects of democratic consolidation in Albania, in terms of strength of democratic values represented by the ruling elites. Recently, with the historical events of present elections could be assumed the end of transition in Albania. Paradigms of changes of old elites, and establishment of state of law, could possibly open some trajectories for democratic consolidation.