EIRP Proceedings, Vol 14, No 1 (2019)

Political Parties Attitude, Voter

Trust and EU Integration (Albanian Case)

Dorina Bёrdufi¹

Abstract: This article focuses on the study of relations among political parties, their actions directed to fulfilling the EU integration political criteria and voters’ trust. Under Albanian conditions, it is supposed that voters’ trust is not an important/influencing factor for the Albanian political parties towards their attitude to the EU integration. The analysis is generally based on primary data of ESS, CHES, Balkan Public Barometer and empiric Albanian surveys. Albanian political parties result to be politically polarized, possess strong leaders, have conflicts among them (even resulting in parliament boycotts), etc. The voters’ trust in political parties per se is in low level. The factors taken into consideration tend mostly to explain the thesis confirmation. Consequently, the voter trust into political parties’ fallout to be a determinant for the political party’s action and attitude, toward the European Integration. Although it is a factor of slowing down the level of belief of the Albanian citizens that Albania will enter the EU soon, resulting not so positive for this country to integrate in a bigger politically and economically government.

Keywords: Political Parties; Voter Trust; EU Integration

1. Introduction

“Political parties are a collective platform for the expression of individuals’ fundamental rights to association and expression and have been recognized by the European Court of Human Rights as integral players in the democratic process. Further, they are the most widely utilized means for political participation and exercise of related rights. Parties are foundational to a pluralist political society and play an active role in ensuring an informed and participative electorate. Additionally, parties often serve as a bridge between the executive and legislative branches of government and can serve to effectively prioritize the legislative agenda within a system of government.” (OSCE/ODIHR and Venice Commission, 2010, p. 8). The voter has considerable weight, especially in election period. Therefore, “the will of the voters is of considerable importance to the parties” (Hofmeister & Grabow et.al, 2017, p. 10). In this context the political parties need to prioritize their politics, focused on the voter’s issues solving, and consequently raise their trust. On the other hand, this party – voter relation established by the voter following the parties dispute and political deliberations. The more the voter trust in their influence in the decision – making process, the more political parties would be focused in this perspective, as a base criterion of political parties (to win the election and govern the country). “Therefore, constant contact with numerous social groups and associations is needed”. (Hofmeister & Grabow et. al, 2017, p. 40). This relational and constant contact with the voter is doubtful in the Albanian context. Party identification is one of the explanations of voter’s trust in political parties. Although it should be mentioned that during this last decade, mainly in the developed countries, the tendency of ideological voter is in decline. (Russell et. al., 2003) This in Albania is an opportunity for disconnection of these two actors, therefore the political parties, increases the prospect to action more freely from the bond with the voter. This tendency goes mostly in the direction of more pragmatic activity (of their own interests), instead of the voter’s interest. “These challenges may be especially important for developing nations. Without the stabilizing presence of party identifiers, party systems may suffer from persisting instability. Moreover, a more fluid public, decoupled from habitual party cues, can also open the door to exploitation and demagoguery by political elites. A less – educated public and a less – robust civil society may be less resistant to such appeals. The invention of partisanship was a solution to the problem of limited voter sophistication; when voters are nonpartisans and less sophisticated, this represents a challenge for responsible electoral democracy. When these changing patterns of partisanship and electoral behavior are a boon or a curse for electoral democracy depends on how citizens and political parties respond to these changes.” (Dalton, 2016). In Albania this constant link with the voters, looks like is not connected with the Political parties’ efforts in European Integration. It looks like the inside political activity and outside (European Integration) are detached. Even though it could be mentioned one interconnection factor: political parties pragmatist interest. This analysis is mainly focused in the main political parties of Albania. As these parties are the most influent in the political arena of Albania and in the European integration issues. The fullest view of political parties’ deliberations and action towards the public is seen, when the actual party is in government. Most notably when they are in government and reveal and their politics to the public.

The paper research question is “Is voters’ trust an important/influencing factor for the Albanian political parties in their attitude toward the EU integration criterion fulfilling”. The supposed answer is that these three indicators do not follow the same trend. The political parties taken into analyses are principally the parliamentary ones; primary, the three main political parties, Socialist Party (PS), Democratic Party (PD) and Socialist Movement for Integration (LSI) and secondly, the other parliamentary small political parties (coalition parties). Generally primary data is used in testing the paper thesis, such as ESS, CHES candidate survey (2014), Balkan Public Barometer, etc. and also primary survey data. In this context, statistical analyses are made in order to confirm this proposed thesis. Secondary data is generally used for the qualitative section of the analyses, particularly in the context of political parties’ attitudes and actions (European Commission Reports, Freedom House, researchers analyses, etc.)

2. Political Parties’ Attitudes

Albania is part of the post – communist countries. Therefore, as all other actors, it faces also difficulties in converging the political parties and the voter’s interest into the same direction. Actually, since taking the candidate status (Jun 2014) it has been working towards to for almost five years. In this context, Albanian citizen affirm that EU membership is mostly a good thing. It results with a raising tendency from 81% (good thing) in 2016 to 83% in 2018 (Balkan Public Barometer 2016 – 2018). Furthermore, in another question of this survey mapping, the Albanians show a perception to postpone the EU accession. Albanian public in the shortly after the candidate status (51% in 2015), whereas in 2018 they show a perception to postpone the accession in 2025 (37%). Even though Albania has made progressive transformation toward the EU process, it still remains a potential candidate. Albania faces a strong political leadership, authoritarian tendency in the political drivers, politicized political parties, problematic level of corruption (national and local), strong disputes between the ruling majority and opposition, etc. Here is also important to mention the actual level of democracy in Albania (Freedom House, 2019) of 4.11/7. Hence, it is 2.89 points far from being on the most democratic groups of countries. Technically Albania has to fulfill the EU Copenhagen Criterions in order to enter the EU. The European Commission Reports, strongly highlights the political context (EC, 2018). Such as political parties smooth out, stronger connection to the public and the voter, etc. All this directive goes in one main direction of the democracy level increase and consolidation.

In order to design the political parties’ attitudes in the voter and EU Integration linkage, firstly, we have to see the political party and its leadership in its public attitude. Three of the CHES candidate survey (2014) are taken into consideration (Graph 1): Relative salience of European integration in the party’s public stance in 2014; Position of the party leadership in 2014 on fulfilling the good governance requirements of EU membership (administrative transparency, accountability, civil service reform and judicial reform); Overall orientation of the party leadership towards membership of the European Union in 2014.

Results for the first indicator of political party’s public stance salience support for the EU integration, the three main parties of Albania have the highest results on supporting its importance: PD 93.3%, PS, 93.4% and LSI 93.4%. The other smaller parties (coalitions parties) have fewer high levels of support PBDNJ 73.40%, PDIU 66.70%, PKDSH 57.10%, PR 80.00%. In overall, these political parties support the EU integration in their public stance. At this level of analyses, we can say that political parties could be influenced from the voter trust in their public stance. Hence, there is a probability the voter trust could be an important factor in their activities and behavior outside the public stance. Results for the second indicator, the party leadership position on fulfilling the good governance requirements of EU membership (administrative transparency, accountability, civil service reform and judicial reform), are mainly in increasing positive level. PS and LSI are in the same levels compared to the first indicator. The only one that is in decreasing level compared to the above indicator is PD, at the level of 80% from 93.3%. Instead the other smaller (coalition) parties show raising level of favoring in positive direction of the party leadership. The second factor results also confirm the outcomes of the first one. In regard to the third indicator reference the overall orientation of the party leadership towards membership of the European Union, we can confirm that results for the three main political parties of Albania. The other smaller parties show also high level of the leadership orientation toward the UE Integration: PBDNJ 73.40%, PDIU 100.00%, PKDSH, 72.80%, PR 84.70%.

Accordingly, as it is expected, Albanian main political parties tend in their public salience to support the importance of EU integration. Apart from the parties that tend to human rights and national politics such as PBDNJ, PR, the most important one such PS have the tendency to 100% pro EU integration from their leader. In the Albanian case, 20% of the moderate difference between PS and PD (the actual opposition) could be explained with time polarization between position – opposition, a year after the general election.

In the first sight, we can affirm that the main political parties and their leadership of Albania have the same tendency of supporting the EU integration, as the Albania citizens, confirming the above data of the citizens survey (Balkans Public Barometer). Although below we are going into deeper analyses to confirm or reject these preliminary outcomes.

Graph 1. Albanian political parties’ behavior toward the EU Integration

Source: CHES candidate survey, 2014

Note: how to read graph 1. To each of the three questions correspond two responses. Starting from the left: the first question of Relative salience of European integration in the party’s public stance in 2014, correspond the first two answers (European integration is of no importance and is of importance), and so on with the other two questions.

Going into a deeper analysis, we obtain contradicting results on political parties and their public attitude. We will analyze below the actual political activity, focusing on their real action in the political arena of Albania. We will see that the main Albanian political parties (position and opposition) are mostly focused in their actions/attitudes resulting from the political actions, to be more pragmatist (self – interests) orientated, then voter orientated and less voter trust oriented.

Initially, the most important indicator is the authoritarian control of the political arena and action of the position leader. This control is extended in the executive and other institutions (Kajsiu, 2018). This tendency is seen not only in the today government but also in the previous governance as well. Furthermore, the same tendency is seen inside the main political parties’ structure and management. The leadership is oriented toward fulfilling their pragmatist interest of the political position on the Albanian political arena. For example, PD ten years before voted animally for the vetting resolution. After that, the same one blocked the parliament works by boycotting delaying thus the juridical vetting of the Albanian institutions. It returns the parliament only with the agreement with the PS leader for a technical government (several ministries directed from the PD) and also the electronic voting agreement between the PS and PD. This last one is not applied yet, because of its failure in two pilots experiments in Fier an Tirana. Thus, missing the voter interest and issues which is fundamentally the base criteria of the political party concept. As a matter of fact, in 2019, the opposition (PD, LSI and other smaller parties) is in boycott of the parliament again blocking many of the activities of the parliament focused on the voter’s interest. Consequently, political parties, instead of focusing on the voter’s issues and problems solving are focused on solving their own political issues. Moreover, “electoral processes in Albania have traditionally suffered from politicized institutions, procedural irregularities, violent clashes between contending candidates, and allegations of vote-buying the opposition PD refused to nominate its representatives in the Central Elections Commission (CEC) and register its candidates well past the deadlines established by the electoral code” (Freedom House, 2018). Another factor confirming this point of view is the connection to the government of organized crime groups (European Commission, 2018). On the other hand, a large number of Albanian asylums seeking in the main European Countries (as also the large number of emigrations from Albania) show low level of trust into Albanian political parties as in other Albanian institutions.

Following the above, there are also two other arguments, linked to the week connection of the voter trust and the political parties’ attitudes. The first is the media dependency from political parties. The main issue of this dependency is the problematics of media financing, mentioned also from the EU Progress Report on Albania (Zguri, 2017, p. 51). Secondly stands the civil society, which is mostly not institutionalized. In a context of on – line, magazines, television, etc., being depended from the main political parties (mostly), the voter has the doubt in the information they receive. On the other hand, the deficiency of institutionalized civil society (mostly occasional) does not influence positively to the voters in the way of the possibility for the political parties to solve/discus their issue. Additionally, “civil society depends financially mostly on foreigner donors.” The financial sustainability of civil society organizations remains a challenge due to fiscal and legal frameworks” (EC, 2018, p. 11). “The majority of people remain skeptical about the impact of CSOs’ work and activities. According to the IDM Audit of Political Engagement (April 2016), only 22.4 percent of Albanian citizens think that engagement with CSOs can contribute to changing a particular situation they are not satisfied with”. (USAID, 2017, p. 21). In this situation, of missing an inclusive policy dialog, the voters trust is doubtful of being a factor of influence the political party’s action, and either to the EU Integration posture.

Consequently, Albanian voters face political parties’ pragmatic actions, focusing in fulfilling their own interest and not the EU Criterion of Integration. In this context, below sustentive empirical results are presented focusing on the voters’ trust in political parties. We should take into consideration that the two main types of voting behavior are the ideological (partisanship) and pragmatist. Hence, the partisan voter is supposed to be more connected to the political parties and have higher level of believe in the party they support. Apart, there are also other factors influencing the voters trust into political parties. Graph 2 shows the tendency of Democracy, electoral process, Corruption and Voter turnout in sixteen years (2001 – 2017). From 2011, voter turnout in election have almost the same tendency with the freedom of the electoral process. Therefore, the more democratic the electoral process, the more the voter goes to vote in the election day.

Also notice a likely similar tendency of the voter turnout indicator with that of the corruption level from 2001 to 2013. The 12-year tendency of these two indicators lets us think that there is a high possibility that the voter shall penalize the political parties if the level of political corruption raises, thus having a positive connection of these tow variables. Whereas the democracy level has more smooth line change tendency, probably because it mapped more than the only two indicators of corruption and electoral process shown here.

Thus, in this level of description analyses, we can assert that the voter is linked with the political parties’ actions. On the other hand, above we discussed of the pragmatist political parties’ actions and not so much directed from the voter’s trust in them.

Graph 2. 2001 – 2017 Democracy, Electoral process, Corruption, Voter Turnout

Source: Freedom House for the Indicators of Democracy level, Electoral Process and Corruption

Central Election Commission for the Voter turnout 2000 – 2017

Note: For the Freedom House data, the Democracy Score is an average of ratings for the categories tracked in a given year. The voter turnout variable is calculated the actual value / 10 (to fit in the graph, in the way to compare the tendency of these four factors)

3. Trust in Political Parties

After discussing the political party’s actor, the successive analysis below presented is focused on the other actor related to the EU Integration, the Albanian electorate and its trust to the political parties. Initially, from a descriptive analyses point of view, in Graph 3, it is shown the tendency of the political party trust’s question in the period of 2014 – 2018 (European Commission, Public Opinion Survey question, 2019). In the relevant period, it results that the level of party trust from 2017 to 2018 is decreasing from 36% to 30%, and increasing level of tendency of not to trust the political parties in the same time period from 62% to 68%. The high level of unreliability (almost 2/3) and the low level of trust (almost 1/3) poses a concern to trust of the voter and the political parties’ activities toward the voter interest issues. The citizens show very low level of not answering this question. Therefore, we implicate that the voter is determined in its decision of mainly not trusting the political parties. The average of 30% of the political party’s trust, is probably mainly correlated to the ideological marge of electorate in Albania. Although in the analyzes below a deeper analysis on the ideological voter trust into political parties is applied, in the meaning to better explain these data.

Graph 3. Political Parties Trust

Source: European commission, Public Opinion Survey 2014 – 2018

Getting deeper into the purposes of this paper, we will be examining direct linking variables to the voter trust. After the above possible connection of the voter trust on political parties, below we will try to find if there are factors that does have a possible influence on political parties and EU integration action. Secondly, we possibly will (varying from the results) discuss whether these correlated factors do mostly relate to the pragmatic or to the ideological voter behavior. In this context, if the voter believes in the political party in an ideological context, this relation is theoretically and practically a stronger relationship between the voter and the political party’s actions. In new democracies this bond is more apparent than in developed ones. (Dalton & Weldon, 2007). Consequently, the voter supports the party in long term period. Therefore, the political parties’ action toward the EU Integration process would be more conditioned from the electorates trust. The opposite happens if we talk about the pragmatist behavior, connecting the voter to the political party in support of shorter-term politics or even individualistic interests. Moreover, from politicians and scholars of the electorate's voting behavior there is a tendency to admit an ambiguity in the sustainability of supporting a party or another by the voter. Political actors themselves, leaders, etc., have an influence on the variability of the electorate’s support. The behavior of Albanian electorate is doubtful and not free from political and public pressures (Çınar, last seen 28.01.2018).

Additionally, a statistical test is applied to empirical data in three points of times (years 2012, 2013 and 2015). Hence, it could be confident in talking about a possible tendency of voter behavior trust in the specific direction of supporting political parties. The test is a crosstabulation one, with “the trust in political parties” as a constant variable and 21 variables (factors) of micro and macro level, related to the static variable. These tests go further inside in the exploration of the electorate that support a party. The aim is getting some more convincingly scientific results for party trust and support from the electorate. In this regard, we complement these tests results by adding another significant scientific test of “the party that the voter supports more”. Factors correlated are: Life satisfaction; Happiness; Acknowledgment with the program of political parties; Makes the political wing distinction, PD electorate; Socialist Party electorate; LSI electorate; Freedom of control over their lives; Judgment in general from the viewpoint of non - punishment in case of inconsistency - program – activity and specific for the three main parties PS, PD and LSI in Judgment by the electorate for punishment in case of inconsistency - program – activity; demographic factors such as age, gender, etc.

The results show that it cannot state whether only micro or only macro factors impact the voter perception in influencing their trust or non – trust to the political parties. The only two variables that does correlate in a to a somehow sufficient extent are Happiness (0.437) and Makes the political wing distinction (0.415). Thus, it can be affirmed at this point that the electorate does not divide one of these dichotomist group factors. We can also state that the correlated factors change from year to year inducting that we probably have an unstable electorate. Thus, it can be presupposed that with these data analyses (supported from other continuing analyses below) of supporting the main political parties, the voter is better evaluated as a non – stable one. According to their belief to the political parties they could also be influenced from short time factors (electoral factors, etc.). Thus, political parties trust, is not confirmed to be an inflecting factor for the political parties’ attitudes and action, and therefore not inflecting also their attitude toward the EU Integration process.

Besides, there is also a statistical surprise on the demographic factor’s results. None of them correlates to the constant variable of “political party’s trust”. Thus, in these years we can declare that neither the profession, gender, incoming, education, the civil status, age or work status, does influence the voter to belief or not in a political party or to all political parties. These variable does mostly correspond to the type of ideological association of the voter to political parties (as they mostly are variables of their social or psychological group, or other long-term factors). In such logic, is more adaptable to affirm that the voter mostly shows a pragmatic type of behavior. Additionally, the voter could have not a crystalized voting behavior in itself, but rather there could be a behavior formed form outside, such as from political actors, or other outside factors. Meaning that a pragmatic voter, also brings to e pragmatic political party (affirming the results above of the pollical parties’ section). This design displays a non-stable behavior, that in general happens in the transitional democratic countries.

Table 1. Factors related to political party trust 2012, 2013, 2015

Factor cross - tabulated	Cramer's '12	Sig. '12	Cramer's V '13	Sig. '13	Cramer's V '15	Sig. '15
Life satisfaction	0.159	0.106	0.164	0.000
Happiness	0.437	0.000	0.160	0.001	0.303	0.000
Acknowledgment with the program of political parties	0.196	0.000	0.171	0.000	-	-
Makes the political wing distinction	0.415	0.000	0.169	0.000	0.257	0.000
PD electorate	0.184	0.034	0.140	0.222	0.202	0.092
PS electorate	0.195	0.008	0.163	0.000	0.183	0.008
LSI electorate	0.158	0.340	0.138	0.047	0.199	0.012
Freedom of control over their lives	0.135	0.630	-	-	-	-
Judgment in general from the viewpoint of non - punishment in case of inconsistency - program – activity	0.183	0.001	0.136	0.032	0.249	0.000
Judgment by the electorate of the PS for punishment in case of inconsistency - program – activity	0.308	0.000	0.145	0.231	0.244	0.000
Judgment by the electorate of the PD for punishment in case of inconsistency - program – activity	0.201	0.000	0.127	0.116	0.273	0.000
Judgment by the electorate of the LSI for punishment in case of inconsistency - program - activity	-	-	0.124	0.160	-	-
Demographic factors
Satisfaction from finances	0.171	0.040	0.140	0.030	-	-
Gender	0.158	0.256	0.080	0.760	-	-
Age	0.320	0.000	0.110	0.630	-	-
Education	0.163	0.999	0.160	0.270	-	-
Civil status	0.124	0.999	0.100	0.810	-	-
Profession	0.251	0.183	0.420	1.000	-	-
The level of income	0.210	0.001	0.160	0.330	-	-
Occupation	0.264	0.000	0.110	0.570	-	-

4. The Ideologic Behavior Factor Influence the Political Parties in Entering the EU

Finally, as the ideological behavior of the voter is one of the most probably influential factors on the political parties’ behavior, it is worth to further analyze this kind of relation, from the paper thesis point of view. The correlation test result in Table 2 (ESS data, 2012), between the trust in political parties and level of closeness the voters party support, confirm the so far outcomes. Only 22% of the test results correlated, meaning that at this level the voter that is close to the party have the tendency to trust in it. If we examine more specifically the three main political parties of Albania, we will find that although there is a somehow level of trust in the ideological voter, political parties mostly don’t take this factor into consideration for their political action, as also the European Union Integration.

Table 2. Connection of trust and closeness to political parties

Trust in political parties	Test		Albania 2012
How close to party	Correlation		-0.22**
	Significance		0.000
** p < 0.01 * p < 0.05

In this perspective, in Table 3 is exposed the “Level of belief in the parties (Socialist Party, democratic Party and Socialist Movement for Integration)” variable cross tabulated to “seriousness of these three parties” variable, in the period 2007-2008. The question for the seriousness of the political parties have five levels of measure “yes very serious, serious, somewhat serious, not serious and not at all serious”. It is considered only the first to “yes very serious, serious” for the purpose of this research paper. The reason is to show that if the voters trust in the political party, how much do they rely or state the reliability of each of the parties in the years 2007 and 2008 (only these two years we were able to get this kind of measurement, because of the type of the questionnaire and question raised it it).

The result confirmed that for the two main political parties in Albanian Socialist Party and Democratic Party, the voters whom believe in that party also have confidence in that party. The highest level of the data in the cells do affirms this argument. It is also confirmed the decrease of the level of the voter believing in the political party. A decrease of almost 10% for the Democratic Party and 1.13% for the Socialist Party. Consequently, is also confirmed the results analyzed above that the SP electorate is a more stable one. High level of belief results into cross sectioned variables with the one of the SMI and the SP. The levels are higher of the belief in SP related to the SMI, 8.8% in 2007 and 10.2% in 2008, resulting in a slight increase of 1.4% (different from the two-main traditional political parties), and a lower increase for the SMI of +1%. We must mention also that the two main political parties of Albania, have surely higher degrees of voter trust and seriousness in that party.

Therefore, the most probable factor to influence the actions of the political parties, could be the ideological voter, even though they show low level of impact. Adding here also the other results of high level of pragmatic behavior of both actors, and also the factor that the voter even though the party does not fulfill it platform and political promises, they will not punish their parties – will keep voting it (mostly of the Socialist Party), object of a high chance of non-behavior of the political parties linked to the voter trust their attitude toward the EU integration.

Table 3. Level of trust in PS, PD, LSI and Seriousness of party crosstabulation 2007-08

Factor	Year	PS	PD	LSI
Seriousness of Democratic Party	2005	-	-	-
	2007	2.3%	25.4%	0.8%
	2008	5.7%	14.9%	2.6%
Seriousness of Socialist Party	2005	-	-	-
	2007	17.2%	4.0%	2.6%
	2008	16.7%	4.9%	1.9%
Socialist Movement for Integration	2005	-	-	-
	2007	8.8%	4.1%	5.3%
	2008	10.2%	4.7%	6.3%

Note: The alternative shown is “Yes” (completely yes + mainly yes)

5. Conclusions

As a conclusion, the voter trust into political parties results not to be a determinant for the Political party’s action and attitude toward the European Integration. Although it is a factor of slowing down the level of belief of the Albanian citizens that Albania will enter the EU soon, resulting not so positive for this country to integrate in a bigger politically and economically government. This could be one explanation of non-action so much towards the EU integration of the Albanian political parties.

Today's political parties in Albania have highlighted the clientele trends and the patronage system. The results show that the voter does not constitute a very strong influencing actor in their line of action. Institutions and other political party interests can contribute to their political activities, especially in terms of European integration. Here the greatest role can be played by the international factor linked to the pragmatic interests of political parties. In fact, for the development and democratic integration of Albania into the EU, this order needs to change in the direction of focusing on reforming, involving and fulfilling the requirements and issues of the Albanian electorate.

6. References

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Çınar B. Political behaviors of Albanian and Turkish electorates, http://dspace.epoka.edu.al/bitstream/handle/1/909/POLITICAL%20BEHAVIOURS%20OF%20ALBANIAN%20AND%20TURKISH%20ELECTORATES.pdf?sequence=1 (last seen 28.01.2018).

Dalton, R.J. & Weldon, S. (2007). Partisanship and Party System Institutionalization. Party Politics, 13(2), pp. 179–196. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354068807073856.

Dalton, Russell J. & Wattenberg, Martin P. (2003). Parties without Partisans: Political Change in Advanced Industrial Democracies. Oxford University Press.

Dalton, Russell J., Party Identification and its Implications. Politics, Online Publication Date: May 2016, Oxford Research Encyclopedias. http://oxfordre.com/politics/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.001.0001/acrefore-9780190228637-e-72. Last seen on 14.04.19.

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European Commission, Albanian Report from 2016 – 2018.

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Hofmeister, W.; dhe Grabow, K. & Kapitulli mbi Shqipërinë, nga Krasniqi, A. (2017). Partitë Politike Funksioni dhe Organizimi në Shoqëritë Demokratike/ Political Parties Function and Organization in Democratic Societies. Konrad Adenauer Stiftung.

Kajsiu, B. (2018). Country Report. Freedom House, https://freedomhouse.org/report/nations-transit/2018/albania, last seen 23 March 2019.

Osce/Odihr and Venice Commission. European Commission for Democracy through Law, Venice Commission, Guidelines on Political Party Regulation. Adopted by the Venice Commission at its 84th Plenary Session. Venice, 15-16 October 2010, Strasbourg, 25 October 2010.

The Albanian electorate survey data for 2007, 2008, 2015, is disposed from empiric studies (Political Science Department, Tirana University), from my PhD supervisor Aleksandër Kocani. This data is provided also from these years’ analyses in bachelor student’s diplomas at this department, supervised/leaded from my supervisor, as also refereed in conferences and scientific publications.

USAID (2017). 2016 CSO Sustainability Index for Central and Eastern Europe and Eurasia. 20^th Edition.

Zguri, Rr. (2017). Relations between Media and Politics in Albania. Tiranё: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung.

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