Suchergebnisse

The focus of this study is to address the extent to which relevant factions of the ruling elite of the state socialist regime in the periphery of the East Central Europe, such as Albania, borrowed and used the ideological blueprint of perestroika in order to solve the legitimation crisis of the late 1980s. The objective of the study is to reconsider the common sense understanding of the communist regime in Albania, which is generally characterized as remaining Stalinist and totalitarian since its inception until the end. That is not to condone the crimes and the repressive features of the dictatorship neither to praise the assumed modernizing or so-called emancipatory goal of the communist regime itself. Yet, the empirical evidence indicates that in the late 1980s the Albanian state socialist regime considers replacing the dogmatic Marxist-Leninist ideological legitimation and the nationalist legitimation ( Tismăneanu, 2003) of Stalinist type with a more expertise-based and universalistic ideology that would temper the schematic and doctrinaire features of the Marxist-Leninist ideology. Despite the proclaimed continuity with the previous Stalinist ruling practices of the regime, and the ferocious public criticism of current revisionism (an allusion to Gorbachev) and bourgeois capitalist states, a close circle of party ideologues and key representatives of the nomenklatura led by Ramiz Alia started using a different ideological frame and terminology regarding the 'construction of socialism' in Albania. By studying and exploring the official public discourse of these representatives and other influential members of the regime one notices a difference between two prevailing factions within the Albanian Labor Party. One faction represented by conservative and loyalists to the Stalinist legacy of the communist regime emphasizes continuity and status-quo, being not in favor of reforms. The other faction represented primarily by the General Secretary of the PLA and his inner circle does not disavow socialism completely ...

This publication is part of the SAGE Methods Cases 2: Political Science and International Relations (January 2019). This case study problematizes the process of institutional access and immersion in the field as central to the fieldwork experience in allegedly bureaucratic institutions established in politicized settings. The dynamic process of public contestation toward these Institutes, doings and undoings of institutional structures, and hierarchies provides the social context of the intricacy of institutional access. I reflect on the quandaries, dilemmas, strategies, and limitations of field research within various dynamic state institutions. Striving for ideal conditions of complete immersion in the field can be either illusory or counterproductive in a context of competing representations on the past and when the stakes are high. Ethnographic sensibility is an important component of fieldwork. Rather than taking sides, or remaining neutral to various respondents and informants, of opposing positions, the researcher needs to show ethnographic sensibility to each. Central issues that structure this case study focus on institutional access, field immersion, advantages of multi-sited ethnography, strategies of overcoming fieldwork limitations, ambiguity of Institute's researchers/bureaucrats, and the reflexivity of the ethnographer. Ultimately, generating knowledge and understanding in political science through field research requires relishing and revealing apparent similarities and latent contradictions. The field-work was conducted through iterative rounds from 2011-2014 as part of doctoral research.

Political parties are considered as important factors with regard to democratization and legitimacy of a political system. Post-communist ECE countries are characterized by researchers as manifesting weakly organized political parties, high voters' volatility and ideological uncertainty. A number of studies indicate, on the contrary, that post-communist political systems are also featuring a stable institutionalized party system. It is usually argued that a high level of party system institutionalization is a necessary condition or a prerequisite for democratization. This paper aims to investigate the conditions of party polarization in those political systems in which there is a stable and institutionalized party system. Theoretically speaking it is argued that low effective number of parties, low degree of voters' volatility and the stability among dominant parties constitute the main attributes of a highly institutionalized party system. The research question of the paper is: How to explain high party polarization given a relatively low effective number of parties in an institutionalized party system? The paper builds on the case study of Albania, which constitutes a deviant case contrary to the theoretical expectations. Contrary to a number of alternative theoretical explanations on the same issue, such as cultural explanations or those based on long-term causes as the nature of the dictatorial regime, this study present the following hypothesis: A change in the configuration of the social classes and ruling elites after 1992 together with the prevailing of a one dimensional dominant cleavage, opposite to a cross-cutting cleavage, in political competition brings about party polarization. The paper is based on the theoretical framework of Konrád and Szelényi (1979), and Eyal (2003) in order to identify the configuration of the postcommunist ruling elite as well as at the theoretical framework of (Dahl 1966) and (Casal Bèrtoa 2014) concerning the formation of cumulative one dimensional cleavage opposite to the ...

The focus of this study is to address the extent to which relevant factions of the ruling elite of the state socialist regime in the periphery of the East Central Europe, such as Albania, borrowed and used the ideological blueprint of perestroika in order to solve the legitimation crisis of the late 1980s. The objective of the study is to reconsider the common sense understanding of the communist regime in Albania, which is generally characterized as remaining Stalinist and totalitarian since its inception until the end. That is not to condone the crimes and the repressive features of the dictatorship neither to praise the assumed modernizing or so-called emancipatory goal of the communist regime itself. Yet, the empirical evidence indicates that in the late 1980s the Albanian state socialist regime considers replacing the dogmatic Marxist-Leninist ideological legitimation and the nationalist legitimation ( Tismăneanu, 2003) of Stalinist type with a more expertise-based and universalistic ideology that would temper the schematic and doctrinaire features of the Marxist-Leninist ideology. Despite the proclaimed continuity with the previous Stalinist ruling practices of the regime, and the ferocious public criticism of current revisionism (an allusion to Gorbachev) and bourgeois capitalist states, a close circle of party ideologues and key representatives of the nomenklatura led by Ramiz Alia started using a different ideological frame and terminology regarding the 'construction of socialism' in Albania. By studying and exploring the official public discourse of these representatives and other influential members of the regime one notices a difference between two prevailing factions within the Albanian Labor Party. One faction represented by conservative and loyalists to the Stalinist legacy of the communist regime emphasizes continuity and status-quo, being not in favor of reforms. The other faction represented primarily by the General Secretary of the PLA and his inner circle does not disavow socialism completely yet aims to restructure the command economy by providing more autonomy to the managers and to induce the professional class to deliberate on innovative or creative ways of reforming socialism. The more reformist faction had the upper hand despite the discursive ambiguity and hesitations regarding the scope of the reforms. Challenges to regime transition were not lacking either. One could refer to the societal mobilizations of dogmatic regime supporters from local communities in defense of the Stalinist legacy of the dictatorship and the attempted military uprising by cadets of the Army School in February 1991. The protracted dynamics of regime change in Albania, this paper claims, could be better explained by the conceptual framework devised by McFaul (2001) to explain regime dynamics in the Soviet Union. This framework could actually provide a plausible explanation to absence of democratic consolidation and frequency of regime cycles (Hale, 2005) in Albania.

Political parties are considered as important factors with regard to democratization and legitimacy of a political system. Post-communist ECE countries are characterized by researchers as manifesting weakly organized political parties, high voters' volatility and ideological uncertainty. A number of studies indicate, on the contrary, that post-communist political systems are also featuring a stable institutionalized party system. It is usually argued that a high level of party system institutionalization is a necessary condition or a prerequisite for democratization. This paper aims to investigate the conditions of party polarization in those political systems in which there is a stable and institutionalized party system. Theoretically speaking it is argued that low effective number of parties, low degree of voters' volatility and the stability among dominant parties constitute the main attributes of a highly institutionalized party system. The research question of the paper is: How to explain high party polarization given a relatively low effective number of parties in an institutionalized party system? The paper builds on the case study of Albania, which constitutes a deviant case contrary to the theoretical expectations. Contrary to a number of alternative theoretical explanations on the same issue, such as cultural explanations or those based on long-term causes as the nature of the dictatorial regime, this study present the following hypothesis: A change in the configuration of the social classes and ruling elites after 1992 together with the prevailing of a one dimensional dominant cleavage, opposite to a cross-cutting cleavage, in political competition brings about party polarization. The paper is based on the theoretical framework of Konrád and Szelényi (1979), and Eyal (2003) in order to identify the configuration of the postcommunist ruling elite as well as at the theoretical framework of (Dahl 1966) and (Casal Bèrtoa 2014) concerning the formation of cumulative one dimensional cleavage opposite to the multidimensional and cross-cutting cleavage and their different effects. The paper is a qualitative research combined with process-tracing method in order to identify the critical juncture, the pertinent actors, the mobilization of cleavages and the discursive articulation of the political conflict. Political manifestos, main political speeches and party newspapers constitute the data of the paper.

During 20112014, I conducted iterative rounds of field research at state-mandated Historical Memory Institutes that emerged in postsocialist East-Central Europe. The multi-sited fieldwork was focused at the Romanian Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes and Memory of the Romanian Exile (IICCMER), at the Czech Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes (??STR), and at the Albanian Institute for the Study of Communist Crimes and Aftereffects (ISKK). The objective of the research was to understand how the emergence of these particular institutions affected processes of addressing the past. This case study problematizes the process of institutional access and immersion in the field as central to the fieldwork experience in allegedly bureaucratic institutions established in politicized settings. The dynamic process of public contestation toward these Institutes, doings and undoings of institutional structures, and hierarchies provides the social context of the intricacy of institutional access. I reflect on the quandaries, dilemmas, strategies, and limitations of field research within various dynamic state institutions. Striving for ideal conditions of complete immersion in the field can be either illusory or counterproductive in a context of competing representations on the past and when the stakes are high. Ethnographic sensibility is an important component of fieldwork. Rather than taking sides, or remaining neutral to various respondents and informants, of opposing positions, the researcher needs to show ethnographic sensibility to each. Central issues that structure this case study focus on institutional access, field immersion, advantages of multi-sited ethnography, strategies of overcoming fieldwork limitations, ambiguity of Institut??s researchers/bureaucrats, and the reflexivity of the ethnographer. Ultimately, generating knowledge and understanding in political science through field research requires relishing and revealing apparent similarities and latent contradictions.

This paper addresses the following research question: what shaped the emergence of sociological research during the period of late socialism in Albania? The second aim of the paper is to reveal the causal mechanism by which a liberalised cultural policy brought about a shift. The traditional role of the socialist intelligentsia lessened in importance while the role of social scientists emerged. In the very final years of the state socialist regime, in 1989 to 1990, these latter were pitted against Party cadres and representatives in defending a limited yet free academic practice. In order to explain the intricate, early process of the emergence of sociology under state socialism in Albania, this paper utilises a layered theoretical framework that tries to capture the interaction between stages of regime development, the coexistence of various competing modes of legitimation, and the transformation of the heteronomous sector of cultural production into an emergent field of cultural production.