IDEOLOGY OF POLITICAL PARTIES IN ALBANIA

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In this paper, ideological confusion is explained based on the structural-functionalist perspective. Analysis of the phenomenon in question focuses mainly on the interdependence created between the “deeply-social” factors of and political discourse. This analysis is undertaken to better understand the circumstances that condition political parties on representing social categories in different social contexts and on showing the implications of political identity building based on the type of discourse used by the political actors. For this reason, while Almond (1968), Easton (1865), Luhmann (1981) analyze the ideology, they pay attention directly to the way of society structuring, and not as much to the political discourse. According to them, no partial aspect of social life and no isolated phenomenon can be understood unless it is linked with historical integrity and social structure conceived as a general unit. In this study, macro analysis focuses on the identification and treatment of several important indicators in terms of influences in structuring the political identity as important elements even for the empirical testing to the solutions this paper proposes. In this article the political discourse of Democratic Party and Socialist Party is analyzed in three different time periods, 1992 - 1996, 1997 - 2001 and 2002 - 2012. In the first period, on the one hand, the government of the right wing undertook many structural reforms, while on the other hand it does not neglect social assistance for certain groups affected by these reforms. During this period, the Socialist Party is focused more on dealing with itself in terms in order to break with the past than to create a particular profile in an ideological sense - in relation to the opponent. This approach makes political parties differ little from one another. The only difference between them in this period is the discourse: “anticommunism” and “antiberishism”. Democratic Party refers to the origin of Socialist Party to attack it for its relation with the past, while Socialist Party denounces the whole Democratic Party for its leadership qualities. More specifically, each attitude of SP in opposition was labeled as a reminiscence of the former Labour Party, while for the SP every each attitude of the government manifested authoritarian, provincial and tribal tendencies of Berisha.