ABSTRACT
Surrounded by more powerful neighbours and riven by divisions among themselves, the Albanian experience to date has been one of failure in state-building, nation-building and democratisation. Among the poorest people in Europe, they are divided between three states: Albania itself with smaller minorities resident in Montenegro and Greece, and a significant diaspora in many others. In the face of an adverse history, and extraordinarily difficult contemporary problems, democratisation has been partial and incomplete. The two million Albanians in Kosovo and the third of a million in Macedonia have experienced ethnic conflict, while the three million in Albania have experienced the collapse of their economy and their state. In spite of these calamities, the Albanian communities have managed to preserve their ethnic affiliation, in a way that represents a distinctive adaptation to the more fluid conditions governing sovereignty, economic organisation and political mobilisation in the new Europe.
