Social democracy is failing all across Europe; but it's impotence in the Balkans especially is having serious consequences for the region.

On occasion of the publication of “Bunkers” by Manuel Montobbio, a book on the totalitarian experience, we propose a conversation about the nature and the limits of power. Español

Enver Hoxha: The Iron Fist of Albania tells the extraordinary story of how one man held an entire country hostage for 40 years – and got away with it.

The recent Serbia-Albania football match was like a microcosm of the twenty-first century Balkans: lots of intense, emotional nationalism and "othering" and in the end, the result was completely irrelevant.

Haki Stërmilli 1936 novel If I Were a Boy portrays the contemporary problems of Albanian society that stem from a misogynistic mindset, and deserves to be (re-)read today.

Sixty miles north, in the rocky and desolate Spaç labor camp, political prisoners watched the ceremony from wooden benches in the television room. No one dared smile or cheer. Would Hoxha’s death mean their liberation or execution?

A recent spate of terrorist attacks in Albania has drawn virtually no international attention. But the consequences for the country could prove very serious indeed.

Were UEFA being dangerously naive when they allowed Serbia and Albania to be drawn into the same qualifying group?

Instead of bringing the focus back to sports, UEFA’s decision about the abandoned Albania-Serbia game has given an even larger stage to politicians and their political rhetoric.

On life in prison generally, the most common complaints across five countries were about hygiene and space.

The post-1945 system is today overtaken by events and a new world order is about to emerge. This new—quite explosive—background doesn’t signal the end of the EU, but shouts out that its core features must be redesigned and receive broad popular support. The question is how.

A new socialist model is emerging in the western Balkans. Can its political vocabulary transcend the ethno-national dividing lines in the region?

Albania has been leading the Balkan region in its management of women prisoners – a complex group to detain and rehabilitate. Now, as a new government is sworn in and politically motivated staff changes look likely, this progress – and the wellbeing of its female inmates – is at risk. 

A handy guide for journalists on how to write about this mysterious and brooding region.

“Are you saying that Le Pen has a branch even in Albania?!” – intervened the one who had found the envelope. “Yes, sir,” - I answered. “As I just said, Albania is now a free country.”

Interestingly the change-over in 1991 is described by many as the ‘arrival of democracy’,  but there is little perception of improvements and less of having much say in the way the country is run. And what do they understand by democracy? A question not only for Albania.

There are particularities of fear in a post-communist Europe bewildered by the demands of neoliberalism, which also tap into a legacy of aversion matured during Communism.

On 21 January, three people died when the Republican Guard opened fire on protesters in front of the Prime Minister’s office. This is taking place in Europe

Albania’s iron communist regime survived until 1990, five years after the death of its great dictator, Enver Hoxha. But the country’s political path since then is full of unburied ghosts, says Bernd Fischer.

Hoxha's bunkers remind Albanian's of the destructive paranoia of their recent past. But they are being re-used and rediscovered by a generation for whom that history is now ancient