ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book discusses some of the distinctive macro-political features have played a central role in shaping ethnic relations also in Albania. It shows that declining salience has been due in large part to Turkish emigration. The book describes cronyism in privatization, slowness in liberalizing prices, and rampant clientilism are encouraged and exploited by nationalist ethnic majority parties, which favor a high level of dirigisme precisely in order to maintain control over the ethnic distribution of public benefits. It addresses the role of Russian nationalist forces in fomenting anti-independence sentiment in the Baltics and the destabilizing influence in southern Albania of Greek Orthodox clergy in northern Greece; provide similarly telling examples of the importance of non-state actors. The book suggests that produce the unintended consequence of mobilizing unorganized ethnocultural groups to claim the mantle of nationhood itself.
