The Politics of 'Euro-Atlantic Orientation'
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CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by University of Birmingham Research Archive, E-theses Repository THE POLITICS OF ‘EURO-ATLANTIC ORIENTATION’: POLITICAL IDENTITIES INTERESTS AND ALBANIAN FOREIGN POLICY 1992-2007 by ODETA BARBULLUSHI A thesis submitted to The University of Birmingham for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Centre for Russian and East European Studies College of Social Sciences University of Birmingham September 2009 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. ABSTRACT This thesis explores the shifts and continuities in the construction of security in the post- communist period. The thesis provides an insight into the reasons and the ways in which the dominant discourse of security and foreign policy of the Albanian state shifted in 1997 from a an emphasis on the ‗nation‘ and ‗national sovereignty‘ into a liberal discourse which emphasised the ‗economy‘ and the ‗region‘. The overarching question of the thesis is why did the Euro-Atlantic orientation become the hegemonic discourse of Albanian foreign and security policy in the post-1997 period? In order to find the answer for this question I will concentrate on the meanings that the Albanian political elites—and more specifically the two main governing parties, the Democratic Party and the Socialist Party— have attached to the notions of ‗national question‘ and ‗Euro-Atlantic orientation‘. The argument of the thesis is that the different articulations of ‗Euro-Atlantic orientation‘ and of the ‗national interest‘ have relied upon the political elites‘ ideological repertoires. Through these repertoires, the political elites translate the basic identity narratives of the Albanian nation and state into hegemonic discourses of security. The thesis builds on Discourse Theory and particularly the approach developed by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe (1985) By incorporating notions of ‗identification strategies‘, ‗interpretative repertoires‘ and ‗myth‘ into the framework of Lene Hansen and Ole Waever (2001), the thesis reveals the intricate interplay between the construction of state identity and of political identities in post-communist Albania. To my parents, Satber and Shemsi Barbullushi. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my PhD supervisors, Tim Haughton, Michelle Pace and Kataryna Wolczuk for their help, advice and encouragement throughout the process of writing the thesis. I also gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the Dorothy Hodgkin Graduate Fund. In Birmingham, special thanks go to Jelena Obradovic, Julie Elkner, Alexandra Prodromidou, Lara Scarpitta and Tatyana Guveli for helping me go through the difficult process of becoming a PhD and life in general. I am particularly grateful to Julie Elkner for the sensitive reading and editing of chapter drafts. I also would like to thank three friends Rezarta Bilali, Ozlem Demirtas-Bagdonas and Kristina Stoekl, who have played an important part in my creative process throughout my postgraduate years. During my field work in Tirana, several friends among whom Armela Bega, Jonila Godole and Azem Qazimi have assisted with the logistics, contacts and other hurdles of field work. I am particularly thankful to Blendi Kajsiu for helping with contacts for interviews and with the availability of various texts. I would also like to thank Albert Rakipi at the Albanian Institute for International Studies (AIIS) for the opportunity to work at the Institute during field work. At the Albanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I am thankful to Pranvera Dibra for providing a welcoming work environment at the State Archives. Last, but not least, the completion of this work would have perhaps been impossible without the continuous encouragement of my two sisters Suela Kadia and Nevila Reizi. TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter One: Introduction ................................................................................................ 1 1.1. Introduction .............................................................................................................. 1 1.1.1. The Object of Study and Level of Analysis ............................................................ 1 1.2. State of the Literature ............................................................................................... 5 1.2.1. Domestic Sources of Foreign Policy ...................................................................... 6 1.2.2. Discourses of the Nation, the State and the West ................................................... 9 1.3. Research Question, Research Design and Findings ................................................. 11 1.4. Structural Dislocation and Change in Security Discourses ...................................... 17 1.4.1. The End of Communism: 1991-1992 ................................................................... 19 1.4.2. The Collapse of the Pyramid Schemes: 1996-1997 .............................................. 20 1.4.3. The Elections of 2005: The Return of the Centre-Right ....................................... 25 1.5. Methodology .......................................................................................................... 26 1.5.1. A discursive methodology ................................................................................... 26 1.6. Structure of Thesis.................................................................................................. 28 Chapter Two: Political Subjectivity, Hegemony and the Myth of Euro-Atlantic Orientation………………………………………………………………………………….30 2.1. Introduction ............................................................................................................ 30 2.2. Domestic Factors and Foreign Policy...................................................................... 32 2.2.1. Foreign Policy as Domestic Politics ..................................................................... 34 2.2.2. Foreign Policy and National Identity ................................................................... 39 2.2.3. Foreign Policy and Political Identities.................................................................. 44 2.3. Main Parties‘ Political Repertoires and Hegemonic Practices ................................. 48 2.3.1. Main Parties‘ Subject Positions and Interpretative Repertoires ............................. 48 2.3.2. From Ideological Identities to Hegemonic Identity of the State ............................ 53 2.4. Meaning and Functions of the ‗Euro-Atlantic orientation‘ ...................................... 56 2.4.1. The concept of ‗myth‘ ......................................................................................... 56 2.4.2. The Construction of ‗Euro-Atlantic orientation‘ as state identity .......................... 59 2.5. Methodology ......................................................................................................... 62 2.5.1. Political Actors, Political Elites and State Elites .................................................. 63 2.5.2. Linguistic Strategies of Identification .................................................................. 64 2.5.3. Empirical Resources ............................................................................................ 65 2.5.3.1.Primary Sources .................................................................................................. 65 2.5.3.2. Elite Interviews .................................................................................................. 69 2.5.3.3. Archive Work ..................................................................................................... 71 2.5.3.4. Other Sources .................................................................................................... 71 2.6. Conclusions ............................................................................................................ 72 Chapter Three: Myths of Albanian National Renaissance and their Post-communist Reconstitution……………………………………………………………74 3.1.Introduction.................................................................................................................. 74 3.2.Contextualizing the Nationalist Discourse (1848-1939 ................................................. 77 3.2.1. The Challenges of National Unification ................................................................. 78 3.2.2. National Independence as Political Pragmatism ..................................................... 78 3.3. The key identity narratives of the National Renaissance ........................................ 81 3.3.1. Europe: From an Other to another Self ................................................................ 81 3.3.2. Nation above all: The Ideological Construction of ‗religious tolerance‘ ............... 84 3.4. The Reconstitution of Albanianism in Communist Historiography ......................... 88 3.4.1. The communist discourse of the ‗nation‘ and the West ........................................ 89 3.4.2.