Think tanks in Albania: a case of a flawed power-knowledge nexus

Think tanks are widely considered to be an important part of political life in mature democracies (McGann, 2019). The aim of the article is to present a preliminary characterisation of the institutional landscape of think tanks in Albania, based on the results of a qualitative and quantitative study conducted at the turn of 2017. The paper starts with presenting the specific features of the Albanian think tank sector and then proceeds to identify two major, yet interlinked, challenges facing Albanian think tanks, namely: (i) the lack of any internal political and institutional market for their research products, which is evidenced by their negligible impact on the policymaking process; (ii) the dependence on financing from external donors, which seriously constricts the autonomy of Albanian think tanks in defining their research agenda. The authors propose that this analysis of Albanian think tanks will aid in understanding how the Albanian political system functions as a whole.