Albanian Society in Post communism: “Fear society” or “Free society”

Abstract

In general a free society is associated with the preservation of the liberties. In contrast, a fear society is a society that the liberties exist in paper, in which dissent is banned. In a free society we can find effective democracy, in a fear society we can’t find this. The concept of effective democracy is related to the possibility that within a country to really function and strengthen the rights of the ordinary citizen, his voice in decision, his role in governance and his treatment as an equal and important. But the simple fact that there are elections where citizens decide and choose their government with appropriate programs, does not achieve this goal. Also only the approval of laws that formally establish civil and political rights is not enough to empower citizens. Precisely this makes this study necessary to measure the level of effective democracy in a society, this mean to understand how much power people have and how democracy is fulfilling its mission as "the power of people". We will measure the level of Effective Democracy in Albania in the years 2002-2012. Secondary resources will help us to measure the Effective Democracy Index (EDI) which emerges as sum of Democratic Rights Index (DRI) and Rule of Law Index (RLI) (Alexander, Inglehart, Welzel, 2012). Then we will try to explain the situation of the Albanian society nowadays, is that a fear society or a free society. Analysis of these data will help us to understand better what kind of society we have, the problems that we can be face and some predictions for the future.