Of Knights and Squires: European Union and the Modernization of Albania
CID Research Fellow & Graduate Student Working Paper No. 81
Ermal Frasheri
March 2016
Abstract:
In this paper, I question the idea that a country develops and democratizes merely by pursuing a model of deeper regional integration with more prosperous countries. I examine the case of Albania’s integration into the European Union to show that more often than not, transition reproduces hierarchies and inequities that usually underpin relations between a prosperous center and a backward periphery. Instead of being a cure, a solution to the political primitivism and underdevelopment, the story with Europeanization as a model of modernization suggests that despite noble intentions and goals, reforms in the name of the European Union end up foregrounding a security state apparatus, impose an ideological hegemony, and maintain a political culture that inhibits democratization, while discouraging and displacing the need for endogenous growth strategies.
This paper is published in the North Carolina Journal of International Law (Volume 42, Issue 1)
Affiliated Program: Growth Lab