A case of far-right mainstreaming beyond electoral performance: far-right memory politics in Albania

English (OpenAlex)

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.