Shelter-Seeking and Small-State Foreign Policy: Albania’s Strategy in the Post–Cold War Western Balkans

This article explores Albania’s post–Cold War foreign policy through the lens of shelter theory, analyzing how a small state in a hierarchical international system manages structural vulnerability through external institutional anchoring. It argues that Albania’s external orientation has been shaped by a long-term, cumulative process of institutional embedding within Euro-Atlantic institutions, through which key vulnerabilities in security, governance, and regional positioning have been managed rather than fully overcome. The study demonstrates that Albania’s external strategy has evolved through interconnected and cumulative forms of dependence. Membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has functioned as the primary mechanism of security shelter, providing collective defense and reducing security vulnerabilities. The process of European Union integration has operated as political shelter, structuring governance transformation through conditionality and institutional monitoring. In addition, Albania’s engagement in the Western Balkans reflects adaptation to externally structured frameworks of regional cooperation rather than autonomous regional leadership, constituting a third, derivative layer of institutional embedding. The article argues that Albania’s foreign policy is best understood as an evolving pattern of structured interdependence rather than a linear transition toward autonomy. These forms of external embedding reinforce one another, producing a stable yet asymmetric relationship with Euro-Atlantic institutions. By applying shelter theory to the Western Balkans, the study extends the existing literature beyond its traditional Nordic focus and demonstrates that shelter-seeking operates as a multidimensional, cumulative process of institutional embedding across security, political, and regional domains in the post–Cold War context.