From Socialism to Europe: Framing Post-Communist Transition in Parliamentary Debates in Albania, 1991-1992
Enis Sulstarova, University of Tirana (Albania)
Overview
Abstract
The collapse of communism in Eastern Europe was not followed by a large-scale assistance program similar to the Marshall Plan, which helped rebuild war-torn Europe after World War II. In the early 1990s, the West instead extended to Eastern Europe the neoliberal policies that had been implemented in the US, Latin America, and Western Europe in the preceding decades. The expectation was that privatizing state assets and marketizing capital, labor, and services would foster capitalism, the rule of law, and democratization. At the same time, members of the European Economic Community (EEC) were strengthening internal integration and moving toward the creation of the European Union, formalized by the Maastricht Treaty of 1993. For the former communist countries, the prospect of joining the EEC offered a form of legitimacy after the collapse of the socialist project. “Europe” became synonymous with the West, representing personal freedom, material wealth, liberation from Soviet/Russian control, and international legitimacy. With the promise of eventually becoming part of “Europe”, and under the watchful eye of the West, the new post-communist states began implementing painful economic reforms. These reforms led to rising unemployment, massive emigration, the dismantling of much of the social safety net, social polarization, rural-to-urban migration, and an increase in crime, corruption, and kleptocracy. Emerging political parties in the newly established parliaments debated the direction of these reforms, often using populist rhetoric and nationalism.
Political pluralism in Albania began in late 1990, and the first parliamentary elections were held on March 31, 1991. However, the anti-communist coalition came to power only after the second parliamentary elections on March 22, 1992. During the first two turbulent years of transition, Albania—a xenophobic, impoverished, Stalinist state—saw its parliament play a key role in establishing the legal framework for a market economy open to foreign investment. It also served as a training ground for the new political elite that would govern the country in the decades to come. The first parliamentary sessions were often the focus of public attention, with many debates broadcast live on state television and speeches by MPs published in newspapers. In these parliamentary debates, “Europe” was frequently mentioned alongside ritual condemnations of communism, collectivism, and the “East”. This paper examines how the idea of Europe was articulated in Albania’s parliament during 1991-1992. The goal is to shed light on the role that the idea of Europe played in legitimizing the reforms of the post-communist transition. The timeframe allows for an analysis of the discourses of the two main parties—the Party of Labor (later the Socialist Party) and the Democratic Party—both in government and in opposition. A preliminary conclusion is that the idea of Europe served as a tool of legitimation for the new system, carrying normative power and acting as a point of consensus across the political spectrum. However, it was also used as a discursive strategy in debates over rival conceptions of socio-economic reform. In 1991, for example, the Democratic Party, in opposition, advocated for a “shock therapy” approach to reform, while the Party of Labor supported a “mixed economy”. The position of one’s party was framed as aligning with contemporary Europe, while the opposing party’s stance was disparaged as “Eastern” and backward.
In the political context of that time, the “East” came to symbolize opposition to Western/European modernity: primarily communism and dictatorship/despotism, but increasingly also Islamism, which was imagined as a challenge to European liberty and democracy. Although a self-Orientalizing attitude was evident in many parliamentary speeches (“we should become European”), the target of internal Orientalism was often the underprivileged groups negatively affected by neoliberal reforms, especially during periods of intense political conflict outside the parliament (such as strikes, street demonstrations, and road blockades).
The data for this investigation will consist of the proceedings of parliamentary speeches from 1991-1992, available in Word format. The tentative research method will be content/discourse analysis. The online database, containing about 5,000 pages, will be searched using keywords such as “Europe”, “West”, “East”, “Orient”, “Asia”, “Africa”, and “Islam”. The phrases where these words appear will be identified along with the speaker’s name, party affiliation, date of the speech, and the relevant parliamentary session. The data will then be reviewed to eliminate irrelevant or repetitive entries, and the remaining phrases will be categorized by topic and coded. In some cases, to better contextualize the meaning, it may be necessary to review the entire speech or the full proceedings of the relevant parliamentary session. The typology of the most significant uses of the idea of Europe will be interpreted in relation to the research question, with the help of secondary literature.
Introduction to the speaker
Enis Sulstarova is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Tirana, where he works in the Department of Political Science. In 2000 he graduated from the Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey. In 2002, he gained a master's degree in Political Science and Public Administration from the same university. In 2011, he successfully finished his doctoral studies at the University of Tirana. Between 2013 and 2015, he was a Marie Curie Fellow at the Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research in Braunschweig, Germany. His research interests include nationalism, identity politics, political sociology, politics and culture in the Balkans, and citizenship.
His publications include several books in the Albanian language, as well as numerous chapters and articles published in international journals. Among his many scholarly contributions, his book Arratisje nga Lindja: Orientalizmi shqiptar nga Naimi te Kadareja (Escape from the East: Albanian Orientalism from Naim to Kadare) was published in Tirana in 2006 and reprinted several times since then. He is also the author of the volume Jam Europe. Intelektualët dhe ideja e Evropës në vitet 1918-1939 dhe 1989-2006 (To Be Europe. The intellectuals and the idea of Europe in the years 1918-1939 and 1989-2006) (Logos A, 2012) Email: enis.sulstarova@unitir.edu.al.