ABSTRACT
In the last chapter, we explored the emergence of corruption discourse in the Albanian political scene as well as some of its main characteristics. In this chapter, I intend to show how this discourse served to sustain neoliberal order in Albania in three interrelated ways. First, at the political level, anti-corruption was basically an anti-political discourse that blamed every failure on the corrupt political elite. In this way, it served to shift criticism from policies to politicians. Second, at the policy level anti-corruption recommended more neoliberal policies since corruption was understood in terms of abuse of power or public office for private gain. This called for further constraints on the state and the public sphere and more expansion of the private sphere. Third, the corruption discourse subsumed alternative articulations of corruption that could have been potentially destabilizing to the existing neoliberal order by focusing on anti-corruption.
