Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: Ermal Frasheri
Author-Email: efrasheri@sjd.law.harvard.edu
Author-Workplace-Name: Center for International Development at Harvard University
Title: Of Knights and Squires: European Union and the Modernization of Albania
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.
Creation-Date: 2016-03
Keywords: Economic Growth, European Union
Number: 71
Handle: RePEc:glh:wpfacu:71
File-Url: http://growthlab.cid.harvard.edu/files/growthlab/files/frasheri_cidrfwp_81.pdf
File-Format: application/pdf