YOUTH PARTICIPATION IN LOCAL LIFE BRINGS SOCIAL CHANGES AND EMOCRATIZATION IN ALBANIA

Abstract

Albania’s civil society sector remains weak and struggles to find space for meaningful activity in a highly politicized environment. Even civic activists appear to view running for office as the only real way to influence policy-making; a large number of them competed in local elections in 2011, especially in elections to municipal councils. The implication of politics with civil society and vice versa, based on individual relationships rather than concrete ideas, is one of the characteristics of the Albanian transition. There are constant efforts from political parties and their leadership to imply civil society proclaimed as a new entry or new energy that will democratize these parties or coalitions. These moves cannot represent civil society interests, since politically engaged or influenced people are leading these NGOs. Thus, this paper brings to attention the fact that civil society is more than NGOs registered by law. Other informal groups, such as youth groups and small groups from local communities which could be directly engaged in promoting democracy should be considered as strong actors towards the development of democracy and its consolidation. This paper aims to take into account two important issues, youth participation and small local communities both as part of civil society that could initiate and influence social changes in local level, transferring the process of the consolidation of democracy in a wider context. Since the discourse of fragile democracy has lasted for years and is still on going, I should now ask: how can the youth participation in small groups have an impact on democratization process? And what if we start from bottom-up, with youth participation in small groups at local level? Focusing on getting funds from international donors, rather than following their mission and representing the voice of their representative groups, has affected and implicated the role of civil society in Albania and their international partners, losing connections with reality. Thus, I argue that these international and national organizations have lost links with local communities, or in the other case, they might have imported good examples of democracy from abroad, which don’t fit with the local context in Albania. Local government itself seems that has not performed well towards the youth engagement in participating and consulting to better identify the components needed for democratic changes. Although, international, national and local NGOs are involved from 1991 in consolidation of democracy, they haven’t reached their aim so far; thus, rightly I should raise the question on the role of CSOs during transition. Are they really interested in democratization or should we think about other means and element of local community groups to get involved in order to bring social changes?