Neo-liberal Globalization and the EU Integration of the Western Balkans: The Case of Albania

Abstract

The main rhetoric of the European Union for the Western Balkans, since the mid 1990’s has developed around the idea that if the Western Balkans implement the reforms recommended by the EU, they will develop economically, build a healthy democracy based on a functional rule of law system. In case of the failure of the reforms to achieve these objectives, which indeed is often the case, the answer is founded in the (liberal) modernization theory which argues that the reasons for the failure must be found on the domestic problems and the wrong implementation of the reforms whose beneficiary properties are taken for granted. This paper argues that contrary to the modernization theory, despite the fact that Albania faces many domestic socio-economic problems, structural causes and mechanisms/processes, which emerge from the operation of global economic system (neo-liberal globalization) rest at the center of this failure. This paper, based on the insights of the neo-Gramscian perspective, analyzes the EU integration strategies towards Albania as part of the neo-liberal globalization project/agenda. The complex and dynamic relations based on consent and coercion during this process and the role of the European Commission as the main instrument of this strategy will constitute the focus of this paper. Here is underlined the fact that despite the EU discourse on the implantation of reforms on democracy, human rights and the rule of law as pre conditions for full membership, in practice the Commission initiatives are strongly focused and restricted to the neo-liberal restructuring of Albania while leaving no concrete space for full membership. By the same token, reforms on the rule of law and democracy are reduced on the requirements of the neoliberal economic-political model of accumulation. As a result the main elements of the Commission strategies such as the neo-liberal economy restructuration, rule of law and democracy have not developed proportionally, leading to the reproduction of a kind of authoritarian state.