Islam and Democracy at the Fringes of Europe: The Role of Useful Historical Legacies

Abstract

This article analyzes how the Muslim majority has engaged with, and contributed to parallel processes of democratization and European integration in post-Communist Albania. The assessment of Muslims' choices focuses on the Central organization, the Albanian Muslim Community (AMC), which is recognized by the state as the only authority in charge of all the administrative and spiritual issues pertinent to the community of Sunni believers, and serves as the main hub of respective religious activities in the country. The analysis of democratization, and Muslims' respective choices, are divided into two different periods, namely democratic transition (2 and democratic consolidation (1998-2013), each facing democratizing actors, including Muslim groups, with different challenges and issues. We argue that the existence of a useful pool of arguments from the past, the so-called Albanian tradition, has enabled Muslims to contravene controversial foreign influences and recast Islam in line with the democratic and European ideals of the Albanian post-communist polity. The useful historical legacies and arguments explain Muslims' similar positioning towards democracy throughout different stages marked by different institutional restrictions and state policies.

Islam and Democracy: Conflicts and Congruence

“…Still, they can embrace democracy. For example, Albania is another Muslim-majority country that shows a converging consensus among politicians, intellectuals, Islamic authorities, and the Islamic majority on democracy as "the only rule in town" (Elbasani 2015(Elbasani , 2016.…”

Human Rights in the EU’s Conditionality Policy Towards Albania: The Practice of Sub-committee Meetings

“…Until very recently Albania featured among the laggards of the EU accession process, and as a 'difficult democratizer' frequently located at the tail end of international rankings of successful post-communist transition (Elbasani, 2015). This has something to do with the legacy of communist destruction that has been more difficult to correct than in other countries.…”

“…The prospect of negotiations has thus placed the country on a firm footing towards EU accession, and has further consolidated the framing of EU integration as the country's primary strategy for domestic change and transformation (Elbasani, 2015). The sub-committees have played a largely constructive role through the different phases of late democratization in Albania.…”

The Revival of Islam in the Post-Communist Balkans: Coercive Nationalisms and New Pathways to God

“…Even where pragmatic interests or ideological rifts divided official Islamic structures, the post-Communist state made sure to remedy the problems and affirm its selected interlocutors. The official hierarchy, in return, helped to establish state oversight over the community of believers and to cleanse 'undesirable' influences (Ghodsee 2010, 19;Elbasani 2015). By offering particular benefits and co-opting the Islamic 'establishment', the post-Communist states continued to maintain an intricate relationship between political and Islamic structuresthe sovereign has the prerogative of control and intervention, Ulamas are domesticated, religious ideas tamed, and scholarship corrected.…”

“…Another trend, which destabilizes the nationally-organized religious field, and surfs the wave of deinstitutionalized religious choices, come with the intrusion of various external influences in the porous institutional order that characterized the collapse of Communism. The liberalization of religious conduct and the opening of new channels of communication with the world allowed for the creation of a vivid and competitive 'marketplace', where foreign actors, structures and ideasmissionaries, migrants, students from abroad, humanitarian organizations and virtual Internet networkscompete with established institutions and national ideologies for market 'shares' (Elbasani 2015;Tziampiris 2009;Karcic 2010). Cash-rich Saudi organizations, but also a myriad of other Middle Eastern and Turkish organizations, targeted Muslim communities in the Balkans in order to win post-atheist souls and gain a foothold in the midst of Europe.…”