Limited Efficency of Civil Society during the Democratization Process of Albania

Abstract

The present analysis is part of research on Albanian society after 1990 and their implications for democratic governance. This paper aims to identify the role of civil society on democratization process in Albania case. In a context marked by the goal of civil movements the principal aims are to examine how Civil Society in Albania is involved during the ‘transition’ and their limited influence on democratic governance building. The relationship between the concept of “civil society” and “democratization process” in Albania is viewed from three perspectives: a- in terms of the national, political and social contexts that conditioned the movement goals and strategies. b- in terms of previous efforts by non-elites to change social and political conditions and c- in terms of beings part of policy decision by protests. The features of Albanian civil society are also treated in this paper, followed by focusing on the debate: “Does the Civil Society function properly in Albania or not?” Normally, the function of Civil Society is to play an important and ‘tutoring’ role in building a democratic society. Analyzing civil society in Albania, one can easily note that the way civil society works, acts and cooperates with different factors as financial, human and technical, may affect negatively in this process, and the contribution of Civil Society to the democratization process was limited. For analytic purposes, the discussion is organized in two main parts. The first part, examines theoretical part and focusing on key issues that relate government, society, NGO on decision making to build a democratic governance. The second part examines Albanian civil society and its product during ‘transition’ in reference with the first normative part.