No. 76: Armenian Politics

Issue 76 of the Caucasus Analytical Digest offers a spotlight image of Armenian politics. Alexander Iskandaryan's text pinpoints the lack of developed political parties as the main problem plaguing Armenia's domestic politics and posits widespread political apathy and low trust in political institutions as the reason the ruling party is able to keep its balance and hold on to power despite its low legitimacy. Maciej Falkowski examines the protests against the increase in electricity prices as a manifestation of the increasing social, economic and political crisis that has been haunting Armenia since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The protests were anti-systemic and-regardless of the declarations of the protesters themselves-contained anti-Russian elements. The protests are a new and important phenomenon in Armenian politics, but they are unlikely to generate processes that could affect the direction of developments in Armenia, as the country's internal situation largely depends on the geopolitical situation in the region, which is unfavourable for Armenia. Zareh Asatryan summarizes the existing knowledge about the economic effects of constitutions in light of the upcoming major reform of the Armenian constitution, the draft of which proposes a switch to a parliamentary system from the current (semi-) presidential system and to a proportional electoral rule from the existing (semi-) majoritarian system, among other changes. A body of evidence suggests that a switch to a parliamentary system with proportional representation may create political institutions that favour a larger public sector in Armenia with a particular pro-spending bias in social insurance programs. On the political side, descriptive evidence based on conventional democracy scores suggests that parliamentary countries, on average, have more developed democratic institutions. However, a closer look at countries that switched to parliamentary systems in the 1990s and 2000s reveals that governments opt for a constitutional change primarily to utilize more not less political power.