This paper aims to explore the mechanisms and factors that influence the appointment and career advancement of political elites in the political parties in Albania. The study is focused in the three main political parties: Democratic Party, Socialist Party and the Socialist Movement for Integration. It has shown that the structure and organization of the political parties influence the appointment of political elites and their career advancement. The studies on the post-communist political parties have shown that the mass party as an organizational model is passé and that these political parties show the same typology of the contemporary Western political parties (Lewis, 2001, van Biezen, 2003). However, the political parties in Albania are either institutionalized mass parties, or are based on a charismatic leader. The active members of the parties constitute the pool from which future party leaders emerge. The personnel mobility in the party hierarchy requires a vertical convergence at the centre and elite’s recruitment is centripetal. All the three parties have attempted horizontal appointment of political elites. High profile personalities, who have build their career outside the political party’s activity, are invited to compete in parliamentary elections and get high positions in the party’s structure and organization, however such appointment have not resulted successful. The extra-parliamentary wing of the party, stronger than the parliamentary one, determines the career path and political advancement of the party’s political elite.
Key words: mass party, electoral-professional party, political elite, genetic model, party’s institutionalization, charismatic leader, centripetal movement, centrifugal movement.
