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Under the authoritarian rule of Enver Hoxha, Albania pursued one of the more unusual variants of a planned economy, increasingly isolated from the rest of the socialist world. In this chapter, the authors consider the interplay between the Hoxha’s policy of economic isolationism and the economics produced in isolation. Several conclusions can be drawn. First, much like in other authoritarian regimes, economic theory did not drive economic policy; rather political ideology determined policy; economic theories were retroactively constructed and used as justification. Second, authoritarian-decreed economic theory (dogma) meant that the job of Albanian economists was distinctly different from what we observe elsewhere. Albanian economists played two roles – propaganda for regime positions and technical support for regime policies. Third, and most uniquely Albanian, economic and political isolation created an echo-chamber where theory was functionally irrelevant to policy-making or practice. Decreed economic theory was substantively empty, and new ideas were shut out. This had profound implications for Albania’s eventual transition to a market economy.

Reports that during the mid‐1990s, Afri‐Cola GmbH was a relatively small business in Cologne, Germany. Traces its successful launch of Afri‐Cola, an Afri‐Cola light beverage, in the newly independent republic of Macedonia, and its subsequent decision to evaluate its marketing strategy. Notes that opportunities were arising in nearby Albania; however, consensus was lacking as to what should be done next.

Public sector management, policy-making, sustainable development, post-Communism.

The case is designed to be used with undergraduate-level and MBA/MPA students. With undergraduate levels, the case can be used on the subject strategic management. In MBA/MPA programs, this case can be used in subjects such as strategic planning for public administration. Here, it can be stressed as being about the problems faced by a country on the long road toward democracy. Issues to be discussed in class include: environmental scanning, competitiveness, public policies and strategic agenda.

At the most general level, the case allows for the analysis and evaluation of the strategy and performance of the Albania from 1928 to 2014 along economic, political and social dimensions, using the techniques of country analysis (see Country Analysis Framework, HBS No. 389-080). Depending on time limitations and the particular objectives of the individual instructor, the case can be used to explore all phases of the nation's development or, alternatively, to focus on a specific era, such as Albania, in the way toward a free market economy. The case provides a setting in which to explore the diamond model as a tool for analyzing competitiveness and setting the economic policy agenda. In the Albania case, we highlight diamond analysis in an emerging economy. Albania also highlights the transition from a planned economy to a market economy, and the importance of a cross-border regional integration in competitiveness.

The case is written to serve a number of purposes: Understanding the problems and challenges to sustainable development, especially in a post-communist emerging economy like Albania. The transition/changes that all policymakers have to go through in their efforts for sustainable development of the country. To discuss production factors and the importance of a growth model based on the production factors.

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Hegelian ideas are used to explain the success of Lenin. Hegel′s account of the World Historical Individual may be especially relevant at this time because the dialectic between decentralised grassroots politics and the need for strong central authority not only figured in the rise of Napoleon (an example Hegel had much in mind) but seems to be at work in the affairs of Mikhail Gorbachev as well. But one must beware the paradoxes associated with ideas of historical necessity. One can avoid them by talking of probabilities, and conceptualising the formation of leaders as a response to a market which has a tendency to match supply and demand. But this does not wholly explain the tendency of Marxist systems to produce leaders like Lenin, Stalin, Ceausescu, Hoxha, Tito and Castro. It is argued that such figures become surrogates for the free man of the future, and that the masses are also encouraged to live vicariously through them; but it is also argued that revolutions produce the kind of chaos which creates a demand for authority.

The concept of a paradigm and the dimensions of a paradigm shift are used to analyze the transition that is currently taking place in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Detailed attention is given to the case of Albania This relatively unknown country has overcome the paradigm effect problem and has gone back to zero. We describe the past and present situation in Albania and offer some specific recommendations for its future. The study of this country as it undergoes a paradigm shift can provide some important lessons for its bigger CEE neighbors that are making a slower transition to a market economy.

This symposium analyses the mutually constitutive relationship between economic knowledge and political order. Through a wide range of case studies from Europe, Africa, and Latin America, the essays collected shed new light on the choices and constraints faced by economists under authoritarian rule in the twentieth century. The contribution of the symposium is twofold. Firstly, it expands the geographical and chronological scope of the conversation on the politics of economics. Secondly, it encourages a more nuanced understanding of economists’ agency in their different guises as educators, party propagandists, policy-makers, model-builders, and dissidents.