Local government reform and unitary state consolidation: Controlled decentralization in Albania after the 2015 territorial reform

By Abla XHAFERI

Abstract
This article examines Albania’s 2014-2015 Territorial-Administrative Reform (TAR) as a political-institutional process through which local government reform may strengthen the unitary state while formally advancing decentralization. It treats TAR as a rescaling of authority, not as a simple reduction of local units. The study is theoretical-conceptual and is based on an integrative narrative review. It combines decentralization theory, state rescaling, infrastructural power and intergovernmental steering. Albania is used as an illustrative case, supported by country-specific secondary sources from the Council of Europe, OECD/SIGMA, NALAS and the World Bank.The paper develops the concept of controlled decentralization: a configuration in which formal delegation of municipal functions coexists with central steering through fiscal conditionality, administrative standardization and party verticality. In Albania, TAR reduced fragmentation and increased municipal scale, but also made local government more legible, comparable and governable from the center. The paper does not provide an original causal test of TAR; it offers a mechanism-based conceptual framework for future empirical research. The framework helps assess whether reform expands meaningful local discretion or mainly improves local implementation under stronger vertical control. The article links territorial reform to debates on democratic accountability, state capture and democratic erosion in South-East Europe.
Keywords: controlled decentralization; territorial reform; unitary state consolidation; fiscal decentralization; administrative standardization; Albania