A case of far-right mainstreaming beyond electoral performance: far-right memory politics in Albania
JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY EUROPEAN STUDIES, cilt.34, sa.2, ss.479-502, 2026 (SSCI, Scopus)
- Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
- Cilt numarası: 34 Sayı: 2
- Basım Tarihi: 2026
- Doi Numarası: 10.1080/14782804.2025.2546432
- Dergi Adı: JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY EUROPEAN STUDIES
- Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Scopus, Academic Search Premier, IBZ Online, International Bibliography of Social Sciences, Business Source Elite, Business Source Premier, Historical Abstracts, Humanities Abstracts, Linguistics & Language Behavior Abstracts, MLA - Modern Language Association Database, Political Science Complete, Public Affairs Index, Sociological abstracts, Worldwide Political Science Abstracts
- Sayfa Sayıları: ss.479-502
- Anahtar Kelimeler: Albania, anti-communist memory politics, collective memory, far-right historical revisionism, far-right mainstreaming
- Açık Arşiv Koleksiyonu: AVESİS Açık Erişim Koleksiyonu
- Ankara Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet
Özet
How do far-right narratives become mainstream without electorally viable far-right parties? Moving beyond electoral-centered approaches, this article examines how far-right mainstreaming in Albania is driven by the instrumentalization of anti-communist memory politics rather than party success, as seen elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Memory entrepreneurs - particularly institutional actors like the Institute for the Studies of Communist Crimes and Consequences (ISKK) and transnational networks such as the Platform of European Memory and Conscience (PEMC) - play a key role in this process. Through anti-communist narratives and activism, they promote a revisionist interpretation of history that delegitimizes Albania's anti-fascist national liberation war while rehabilitating Nazi-fascist collaborators as victims of communism. This reframing erodes democratic norms and normalizes far-right counter-narratives by portraying anti-fascism as an obstacle to democratic consolidation. Simultaneously, it depoliticizes socio-economic inequalities, attributing them to communism rather than neoliberal transformation. Drawing on political and historical sociology and employing a critical realist approach to discourse analysis, this article explores the weaponization of historical memory in contemporary Albania and its broader implications for post-communist transitions, memory politics, and far-right mainstreaming in CEE.