Organized Crime in Albania: An Unconventional Security Threat

Abstract

The end of the Cold War brought about a period of insecurity throughout South Eastern Europe (SEE). The quick and unexpected collapse of communist regimes brought to the surface a long list of new challenges that the societies of South Eastern Europe were ill equipped to deal with. Poverty, the absence of the rule of law, weak judicial systems and, in some places, open warfare and the collapse of community ties opened up plenty of opportunities for the growth and consolidation of organized crime. This essay will look at organized crime in Albania, one of the crucial links in a chain of Balkan states that are having a difficult time coping with the problem. However, it is not directly concerned with evidence of or reasons for the existence of organized crime in Albania. Rather, it will investigate the organized crime phenomenon from a security perspective. Traditionally, security threats in Albania have been viewed in terms of “hard” security. Political actors on the Albanian scene still define their security problematic in terms of ethnic, religious, and cultural cleavages within the state, or security threats from neighboring states or ethnic groups.2 While these threats continue to be present, it has become necessary to reevaluate the definition of the security problematic in order to include organized crime. The strengthening of organized crime groups in Albania has increased the possibility of a permanent distortion of the local political system. With regard to Albania, the present definition of the security dilemma is particularly troubling. A cursory look at post-Cold War developments in Albania shows that Albanian security has not been undermined so much by hard security threats but rather by “soft” security threats. The weakness of state institutions and the entrenchment of non-democratic norms within the democratic polity have opened the way for serious security threats to Albanian citizens in the long term.3 Moreover, the lack of awareness on the part of local