rT ansitional Justice and Democratic Consolidation in post-communist aE stern uE rope: Romania and Albania. the former regime in Eastern Europe (Kajsiu 2016). This is why I use Mill’s Method of Difference to analyze these two very similar cases in most regards but that differ when it comes to the degree of democratic consolidation. These two countries in addition to their common views toward both democracy and the former regime, have other resemblances as well such as precommunist legacies, relatively slow transition toward a market economy, initial problems of state-building etc. The variable where they most differ is the degree of democratic consolidation. While Romania is recently considered a semi-consolidated democracy but fully free society according to Freedom House’s 2018 Report with a total score of 3.46, Albania’s democratization and slow transition is one of most problematic in former communist Central and Eastern European countries (Elbasani 2004; Kalemaj 2016). While Romania joined the European Union in 2007 and has completed most of the necessary reforms to successfully make the transition toward consolidate democracy and fully functioning market economy, Albania is still lagging behind, even compared to Western Balkans standards. Not only is Albania far from joining the EU, but it has yet to open the negotiation chapters, while it is currently situated in a political deadlock and suffers from non-functioning institutions (like the highest courts) and weak rule of law. The speed of transition and democratization processes in East and Central Europe ranges from laggard Albania to successful Slovenia and Estonia. It seems that Estonia is a fully consolidated democracy with low transitional justice indicators, as the table below puts together a typology of interaction of transitional justice measure and impact on democratization in countries from CEE.3 Others, such as Vishegrad countries, that seemed well suited for rapid democratization and a smooth transition during the first post-communist decade, now seem to be struggling with the democratization processes. My hunch is that transitional justice could be the missing link to understand why some countries reach faster democratic maturity than others. However, I see this relationship in correlational rather than causal terms in the case of former communist countries of CEE. There is an ever-growing literature about transitional justice in Eastern Europe. One of the best collections to date is that edited by Lavinia Stan (2009) which takes into account successful and unsuccessful cases, as it pertains policy intentions and degree of implementation. The same as this third wave of transitions in CEE varied a lot from country to country, transitional justice has varied as well. While some countries made rapid progress on democratization, especially in the first decade and a half after the fall of communism, some have recently slid back. This despite successful European integration of some of those countries, while others have simply muddled in or have stuck as the example of Western Balkans can testify.4 While in the Polish case, the European Union went out of its way and in an unprecedented move came close to vote to censor Poland, which came to a halt mainly due to opposition from Hungary. The chief reason was Poland’s decision to capture the justice system by forcing into early retirement some of the Supreme Court judges and “packing the courts with government supporters” (Taylor 2019). Whereas East Germany was by far the outlier in the group of CEE countries because it was absorbed by West Germany, which in turn produced high political accountability and thorough processes of lustration, as well as other retributive, restorative and 3. All in all, Estonia has performed better in economic reforms and economic development has a direct causal link on rapid democratization as earlier works on the field have convincingly demonstrated (Lipset 1959). 4. For example, Hungary recently has been having a lot of problems with democratization and the recent measure by Freedom House makes Hungary has the first and the only EU country that has moved backward from a consolidated free democracy in a partly free democracy (Freedom House, 2019). It has also moved backward on political accountability and dealing with the Communist past in a fair and transparent manner, with Orban government going as far as to rehabilitate some Communist figures and persecuting some Communist victims and also removing unilaterally some commemorations and memorials that were to honor Communist victims. Also, Slovakia recently is going into the other extreme and rehabilitating Father Tiso’s government which cooperated openly with the Nazis and is playing with Holocaust denial (Holcova 2019). This undoubtedly affects Slovakia rule of law and undermines to some extent its consolidated democracy. 61