ABSTRACT
In the last two chapters we saw how the corruption discourse of the international community served to legitimize and institute a neoliberal order in Albania. However, the success of the international anti-corruption discourse in implementing a neoliberal order in Albania cannot be understood until we show how such a discourse was strongly embraced by the Albanian political class until it came to dominate the Albanian political scene. Therefore, the aim of this chapter is to show how and why a discourse that centred on the problem of corruption emerged and eventually dominated the Albanian political scene during the years 1998–2005. The specificity of the corruption discourse in Albania can be properly understood by taking into account the struggle of the two main political parties to hegemonize the public sphere. The ruling Socialist Party articulated corruption as primarily an administrative problem that could be eradicated by applying executive power more rigorously. The opposition Democratic Party on the other hand articulated corruption as a feature of the ruling socialist elite that could be removed through a power rotation. Both articulations drew from the international discourse of corruption with which they shared many similarities. Beyond these similarities, however, the corruption discourse that increasingly dominated the Albanian political scene had a strong anti-political dimension.
