Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-mp689 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-20T08:41:14.070Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Institutionalizing a Weak State: Law and Jurisdictional Conflict between Bureaucratic and Communal Institutions in the Albanian Highlands

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 June 2015

Besnik Pula
Besnik Pula*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Virginia Tech
*
bpula@vt.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Why do some states fail to establish the capacity of legal regulation among significant sections of their population, and instead allow alternative norms of social order to take the place of those promoted by the state? Existing models of state building in the sociological literature treat the building of modern bureaucratic authority as a political process in which weak state authority results from a state's inability to defeat rival bases of power. On the other hand, neo-institutionalist theory highlights the significant effects that institutional environments have on organization building, but its elaborations of state building have mainly emphasized processes of the diffusion of world society models as central to the making of the modern nation-state. Both models fail to explain how limitations in new states' capacities to govern populations emerge in cases when states fulfill conditions specified by each model. I use the case of state building in the Albanian highlands to show that jurisdictional struggles and resistance that emerge out of distinct cultures of legality are key to understanding why organizationally capable states may fail to establish durable mechanisms of governance among marginal social groups.

Type
Research Article
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 57 , Issue 3 , July 2015 , pp. 637 - 664
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Abbott, Andrew. 1988. The System of Professions: An Essay on the Division of Expert Labor. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Adams, Julia. 1999. Culture in Rational-Choice Theories of State-Formation. In Steinmetz, George, ed., State/Culture: State-Formation after the Cultural Turn. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 98–122.Google Scholar
Amery, Julian. 1948. Sons of the Eagle: A Study in Guerilla War. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Anastasi, Aurela. 1998. Institucionet politike dhe e drejta kushtetuese në Shqipëri (1912–1939). Tirana: Luarasi.Google Scholar
Anderson, Benedict. 1991. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Barkey, Karen. 1994. Bandits and Bureaucrats: The Ottoman Route to State Centralization. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Barkey, Karen. 2008. Empire of Difference: The Ottomans in Comparative Perspective. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berger, Peter L. and Luckmann, Thomas. 1967. The Social Construction of Reality. New York: Anchor Books.Google Scholar
Berman, Harold J. 1983. Law and Revolution: The Formation of the Western Legal Tradition. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Blumi, Isa. 2003. Contesting the Edges of the Ottoman Empire: Rethinking Ethnic and Sectarian Boundaries in the Malësorë, 1878–1912. International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 35: 237–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1966. The Sentiment of Honor in Kabyle Society. In Peristiany, John G., ed., Honor and Shame: The Values of Mediterranean Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 191–242.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1991. Language and Symbolic Power. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1999. Rethinking the State: Genesis and Structure of the Bureaucratic Field. In Steinmetz, George, ed., State/Culture: State-Formation after the Cultural Turn. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 53–75.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. 2004. From the King's House to the Reason of State: A Model of the Genesis of the Bureaucratic Field. Constellations 11, 1: 16–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Braudel, Fernand. 1972. The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World of Philip II, Vol. I. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Brustein, William and Levi, Margaret. 1987. The Geography of Rebellion: Rulers, Rebels, and Regions, 1500 to 1700. Theory and Society 16: 467–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chanock, Martin. 1985. Law, Custom and Social Order: The Colonial Experience in Malawi and Zambia. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.Google Scholar
DiMaggio, Paul J. and Powell, Walter W.. 1983. The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields. American Sociological Review 48, 2: 147–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Doçi, Pal. 1996. Vetëqeverisja e Mirditës: vështrim etnologjik e historik. Tirana: Shtëpia botuese enciklopedike.Google Scholar
Durham, Edith. 1909. High Albania. London: Edward Arnold.Google Scholar
Durham, Edith. 1928. Some Tribal Origins, Laws and Customs of the Balkans. London: George Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Elezi, Ismet. 1983. E drejta zakonore penale e shqiptarëve dhe lufta për zhdukjen e mbeturinave të saj në Shqipëri. Tirana: 8 Nëntori.Google Scholar
Elezi, Ismet. 1997. Zhvillimi historik i legjislacionit penal në Shqipëri. Tirana: Albin.Google Scholar
Erdem, Hakan. 2007. ‘Perfidious Albanians’ and ‘Zealous Governors’: Ottomans, Albanians and Turks in the Greek War of Independence. In Anastasopoulos, Antonis and Kolovos, Elias, eds., Ottoman Rule and the Balkans, 1760–1850: Conflict, Transformation, Adaptation. Rethymno, Greece: Department of History and Archaeology, University of Crete.Google Scholar
Fischer, Bernd J. 1984. King Zog and the Struggle for Stability in Albania. New York: East European Monographs.Google Scholar
Gawrych, George Walter. 2006. The Crescent and the Eagle: Ottoman Rule, Islam and the Albanians, 1874–1913. London: I. B. Taurus.Google Scholar
Geertz, Clifford. 1983. Local Knowledge: Fact and Law in Comparative Perspective. In Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Gellçi, Diana. 2005. Gjakmarrja: Albanian Highlander's [sic] “Blood Feud” as Social Obligation. Tirana: Albanian Institute for International Studies.Google Scholar
Gjeçov, Shtjefën. 1989. The Code of Lekë Dukagjini. New York: Gjolekaj Publishing.Google Scholar
Gould, Roger V. 2000. Revenge as Sanction and Solidarity Display: An Analysis of Vendettas in Nineteenth-Century Corsica. American Sociological Review 65: 682–704.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harapi, Anton. 1999. Kulla e Babelit. Tirana: Phoenix.Google Scholar
Hasluck, Margaret M. H. 1954. The Unwritten Law in Albania. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Illia, Frano. 1993. Kanuni i Skanderbegut. Shkodër: Shkodër Archdiocese.Google Scholar
Jepperson, Ronald L. 1991. Institutions, Institutional Effects, and Institutionalism. In Powell, Walter W. and DiMaggio, Paul J., eds., The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Kiser, Edgar and Hechter, Michael. 1998. The Debate on Historical Sociology: Rational Choice Theory and its Critics. American Journal of Sociology 104: 785–816.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lachmann, Richard. 2000. Capitalists in Spite of Themselves: Elite Conflict and Economic Transitions in Early Modern Europe. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lampe, John R. and Jackson, Marvin. 1982. Balkan Economic History, 1550–1950: From Imperial Borderlands to Developing Nations. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Laumann, Edward O. and Knoke, David. 1987. The Organizational State: Social Choice in National Policy Domains. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Levi, Margaret. 1981. The Predatory Theory of Rule. Politics and Society 10, 4: 431–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lindblom, Charles E. 1977. Politics and Markets: The World's Political-Economic Systems. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Loveman, Mara. 2005. The Modern State and the Primitive Accumulation of Symbolic Power. American Journal of Sociology 110, 6: 1651–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Malinowski, Bronislaw. 1926. Crime and Custom in Savage Society. Paterson: Littlefield, Adams.Google Scholar
Mamdani, Mahmood. 1996. Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Mann, Michael. 1984. The Autonomous Powers of the State: Its Origins, Mechanisms and Results. European Journal of Sociology 25, 2: 185–213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meta, Beqir. 1999. Politika tatimore e shtetit shqiptar, 1925–1939. Tirana: Instituti i Historisë/Shkenca.Google Scholar
Meyer, John W. 1999. The Changing Cultural Content of the Nation-State: A World Society Perspective. In Steinmetz, George, ed., State/Culture: State-Formation after the Cultural Turn. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 123–44.Google Scholar
Meyer, John W., Boli, John, and Thomas, George M.. 1994. Ontology and Rationalization in the Western Cultural Account. In Scott, W. Richard and Meyer, John W., eds., Institutional Environments and Organizations. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Meyer, John W., Boli, John, Thomas, George M., and Ramirez, Francisco O.. 1997. World Society and the Nation-State. American Journal of Sociology 103, 1: 144–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meyer, John W. and Rowan, Brian. 1977. Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony. American Journal of Sociology 83: 340–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mile, Ligor K. 1984. Çështje të historisë agrare shqiptare. Tirana: Instituti i Historisë.Google Scholar
Miller, William Ian. 1990. Bloodtaking and Peacemaking: Feud, Law, and Society in Saga Iceland. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Musaj, Fatmira. 2002. Gruaja në Shqipëri (1912–1939). Tirana: Instituti i Historisë.Google Scholar
Parsons, Talcott. 1967. On the Concept of Political Power. In Parsons, Talcott, ed., Sociological Theory and Modern Society. New York: The Free Press, 297–354.Google Scholar
Peristiany, John G., ed. 1966. Honor and Shame: The Values of Mediterranean Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Plasari, Aurel and Kulla, Ndriçim, eds. 2003. Branko Merxhani: Vepra. Tirana: Plejad.Google Scholar
Powell, Walter W. and DiMaggio, Paul J.. 1991. The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenberg, Harriet G. 1988. A Negotiated World: Three Centuries of Change in a French Alpine Community. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Schneider, Jane. 1971. Of Vigilance and Virgins: Honor, Shame and Access to Resources in Mediterranean Societies. Ethnology 10, 1: 1–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scott, James C. 1976. The Moral Economy of the Peasant: Rebellion and Subsistence in Southeast Asia. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Scott, James C. 2009. The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Scott, W. Richard. 2008. Institutions and Organizations: Ideas and Interests. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Scott, W. Richard and Meyer, John W., eds. 1994. Institutional Environments and Organizations. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Selenica, T. 1937. Shqipënija më 1937: Veprimi shtetnor gjat njëzet e pesë vjeteve të parë të vetqeverrimit. Tirana: Komisjoni i kremtimeve të 25 vjetorit të vet-qeverrimit, 1912–1937.Google Scholar
Shryock, Andrew J. 1988. Autonomy, Entanglement, and the Feud: Prestige Structures and Gender Values in Highland Albania. Anthropological Quarterly 61, 3: 113–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skendi, Stavro. 1954. The Political Evolution of Albania, 1912–1944. New York: Mid-European Studies Center.Google Scholar
Skocpol, Theda. 1979. States and Social Revolutions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skocpol, Theda. 1985. Bringing the State Back In: Strategies and Analysis of Current Research. In Evans, Peter, Rueschemeyer, Dietrich, and Skocpol, Theda, eds., Bringing the State Back In. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Somers, Margaret. 1993. Citizenship and the Place of the Public Sphere: Law, Community, and Political Culture in the Transition to Democracy. American Sociological Review 58: 587–620.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Somers, Margaret. 1998. ‘We're No Angels': Realism, Rational Choice, and Relationality in Social Science. American Journal of Sociology 104, 3: 722–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steinberg, Marc W. 2003. Capitalist Development, the Labor Process, and the Law. American Journal of Sociology 109, 2: 445–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steinmetz, George. 1999. Introduction. In Steinmetz, George, ed., State/Culture: State-Formation after the Cultural Turn. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stoianovich, Traian. 1980. Family and Household in the Western Balkans, 1500–1870. In Mémorial Ömer Lutfi Barkan. Paris: Bibliothèque de l'institut français d'études anatoliennes d'Istanbul 28, 189–203.Google Scholar
Tilly, Charles. 1978. From Mobilization to Revolution. Reading: Addison-Wesley.Google Scholar
Tilly, Charles. 1985. War Making and State Making as Organized Crime. In Evans, Peter, Rueschemeyer, Dietrich, and Skocpol, Theda, eds., Bringing the State Back In. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tilly, Charles. 1992. Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 990–1992. Cambridge: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Tomes, Jason. 2004. King Zog of Albania: Europe's Self-Made Muslim King. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Watson, Alan. 1974. Legal Transplants: An Approach to Comparative Law. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press.Google Scholar
Weber, Eugen. 1976. Peasants into Frenchmen. Stanford: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weber, Max. 1978. Economy and Society. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Whitaker, Ian. 1968. Tribal Structure and National Politics in Albania, 1910–1950. In Lewis, I. M., ed., History and Social Anthropology. London: Tavistock Publications.Google Scholar
Young, Antonia. 2000. Women Who Become Men: Albanian Sworn Virgins. New York: Berg.CrossRefGoogle Scholar