THE PROCESS OF DEMOCRATIZATION AND ROLE OF ELITES IN ALBANIA

Democratic consolidation in Albania should not only be analyzed from a prospective of regime durability. The paradigms of democratization should be focusing on significant democratic contents. The main goal of this work is to investigate democratic consolidation process during last two decades. This will be conducted through a qualitative case study where the method employed, is on the realm of theory consuming. In order to achieve the purpose, this work will raise the questions of, why Albania did not reach democratic consolidation so far? What were the main challenges for further democratic 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. Under this assumption, strong and reliable elite’s decision-making are important in explaining the consolidation of democracies but not sufficient to guarantee consolidation. Separated, fragmented and conflictive ruling elite may stop democratic consolidation and alter the process. In addressing these inquiries, certain paradoxes recognized in this case are unparalleled in other contexts that involve elites’ attributes to the process of consolidation. Elongated transition in Albanian has only produced an ongoing crisis and the elites seem to have constantly failing to produce a strong pathway for consolidation. Political elites have shown authoritarian tendencies into monopolization of power. This is analyzed as a main constraint of democratic consolidation in Albania. In this case can be assumed, due to vanishing allegiances of political elites to democratic values, that democratization process will be characterized by, backsliding into facade democracies or competitive authoritarianism.Keywords: Paradigms, Albania, democratic consolidation, political elites, mutual pacts, democratic values, competitive authoritarianism, backsliding of democracy