Despite the impossible security and geopolitical environment, the continuing sense of fragility and uncertainty, Armenia has made significant strides since the Velvet Revolution. However, if it is to succeed, it must transcend the politics of negation and fulfill the promise of an open future.
How people behave in public spaces compared to private ones and how they perceive their individual civic responsibility is a reflection of the society in which they live.
Tracing political cultural trends that have been formulating in Armenia through three short, yet fastly-developing, stages: prior to the Velvet Revolution, subsequent to the Velvet Revolution, and after the 2020 Artsakh War.
Although the short-lived First Republic of Armenia is often viewed through the prism of the government’s activities, such as military operations, state defense, social issues, and foreign policy, the electoral processes at the time parallel today’s reality.
Thirty-one founding congresses for new political parties have been scheduled since the start of the year, a quantity not seen since the country gained independence 30 years ago.
Political caricature was an inseparable companion of the newspapers that were being formed under the new freedoms of speech and the press of independent Armenia.
That the same people who made a mockery of democracy are now lamenting an imaginary backsliding, is intellectually insulting to the Armenian citizen, writes Nerses Kopalyan.
Nerses Kopalyan writes that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s declaration of war against the entrenched powers of the previous system is not simply a singular attack against corruption, but rather a broad multi-pronged strategy that envisions an ideational restructuring of Armenia’s political culture.
Is corruption inherent to the post-Soviet Armenian political culture, and if so, does this make the political culture of Armenia incompatible with democratic values? Dr. Nerses Kopalyan examines how conflictual matters that should be resolved in the public sphere are almost always resolved within the cultural rules of the private sphere.
In this new essay for EVN Report, Varak Ketsemanian argues that one of the reasons Armenians have failed to come up with a palatable “national brand” lies in the absence of common political premises (beyond the Genocide and Artsakh) upon which collaborative platforms may be created in the Diaspora, but more importantly, in the Republic of Armenia.
EVN Report’s mission is to empower Armenia, inspire the diaspora and inform the world through sound, credible and fact-based reporting and commentary. Our goal is to increase public trust in the media. EVN Report is the media arm of EVN News Foundation registered in the Republic of Armenia in 2017.
