International Norms and Albania after Communism System

Abstract

This article seeks to uncover the impact of the EU in the Albanian political transformations. Approaching the EU impact on
Albanian political reforms as a process of country’s socialization to the norms institutionalised in the European environment, this study
dwells on both the external and domestic factors that determine the mechanisms of norm assertion in the domestic area. The first part
specifies the set of external conditions and the intervening domestic variables that induce a logic of consequentiality or appropriateness
in domestic change. The article proceeds to discuss the phenomena of European nannies to European neo-democracies. Finally, the
study of the process of democratization in Albania illustrates the extreme case of a wider post-communist phenomenon: the Impact of
EU is translated into a consequential logic of using the democratic rhetoric and adopting democratic institutions, which are used and
abused by political actors loaded with the legacies bequeathed to them by the ancient regime. This article suggests that Albanian
democratisation could have a different trajectory without the presence of the EU pushing for and directing reforms. Messages in the form
of the EU reports, evaluations and critiques, which determine the progress in the contractual relations between EU and Albania, have
became the signposts of change to the extent that they are the epicentre around which achievements and future challenges are debated
and decided upon.