These days if you Google “Tirana,” Albania’s vibrant capital city, you will find a plethora of articles highlighting the city’s rapid transformation and reinvigoration, with much of this positive change attributed to the vision of its young, Western-educated mayor Erion Veliaj. Mr. Veliaj, who took office in 2015 after a career in the NGO world, was a political outsider and rose to power on a wave of hope that he would introduce a new brand of governance—one that included cleaning up entrenched, systemic corruption. Mr. Veliaj frequently emphasized this theme, together with the need for greater accountability more generally. He represents a cohort of young politicians in the region who promise radical change to voters craving leaders truly dedicated to fighting for everyday people instead of special groups and political machines.

Yet despite his professed commitment to clean government, Mr. Veliaj hasn’t been terribly vocal about high-level corruption (including the scandals within his own Socialist party), nor has he done much to address concerns about a lack of transparency in public procurement. Instead, he has focused on going after some of his municipality’s most vulnerable populations, like street vendors (see here). Yes, it’s true that these vendors typically do not have the requisite licenses, and some pay bribes in order to be able to operate. However, these street vendors, who work in the informal economy out of necessity, are hardly the engine of corruption in Tirana and wider Albanian society. Rather than treating the street vendors as criminals, Mr. Veliaj would do better to adopt an alternative strategy that would both protect this vulnerable population by integrating them into the formal economy, and tamp down the associated corruption problems. Continue reading →