What Constitutes Sovereignty in Albania: the History of Land Reform

This paper examines the concept of sovereignty in Albania through the lens of land reform, tracing its transformation through pre-socialist, socialist, and post-socialist periods. Land reform serves as a focal point for examining how state authority, social structures, and economic priorities have shaped property relations in the country. In the pre-communist era, land ownership was concentrated among a few elite families, reflecting a traditional form of sovereignty tied to wealth and privilege. Under communism, the state asserted absolute control over land, collectivizing it into cooperatives and state farms as an expression of centralized authority. The post-1990 reforms, marked by decollectivization and privatization, signaled a shift toward market-oriented governance, redistributing land to citizens and redefining state-society relations. After 1990, collective and state agricultural land was privatized and distributed to peasants and villagers. Throughout these changes, the Albanian state and its forms of sovereignty played a central role, reflecting broader political and economic transformations. Privatization and land redistribution were among the most important initiatives in the country's transition to a market economy after the fall of communism. This research focuses on how this transition unfolded in rural areas, where two-thirds of the population lived at the beginning of the post-communist period and where about half of the labor force was employed in agriculture and forestry. The analysis shows that sovereignty in Albania has been both fluid and contested, shaped by internal dynamics and external influences. It highlights the interplay between state policies and grassroots responses, including the population's reliance on informal mechanisms to navigate shifting legal and economic landscapes. By situating land reform within Albania's broader historical context, the paper provides a nuanced understanding of how sovereignty has been exercised, challenged, and redefined through changes in property ownership and land governance. The research examines how land reform laws reflect the Albanian state's conceptualization of sovereignty, particularly with regard to property rights and land control. It applies concepts of sovereignty proposed by theorists such as Hobbes, Vattel, or modern sovereignty scholars to interpret how land reforms reflect shifts in state power and autonomy. It aims to combine insights from different theories of sovereignty to construct a holistic understanding of the role of land reform in shaping Albanian sovereignty.