Armenia's new autocrats

Journal of Democracy

Volumn 8, Issue 3, 1997, Pages

  Bremmer, Ian ^a   Welt, Cory ^b  

^a Study of Nationalities   (United States)

^b MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 18744421227     PISSN: 10455736     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (16)

1. One rumor circulating in Yerevan in 1996 was that Siradeghian had told supporters that "in Armenia nobody can get involved in a racket - with the exception, that is, of Internal Affairs."
2. This is not to say that Ter-Petrosian lacks economic interests; his older brother Telman Ter-Petrosian is director of Hrazdanmash, Armenia's largest enterprise.
3. Hayastani Hanrapetoutioun (Yerevan), 13 May 1996.
4. Ironically, because trading and services were so vertically controlled, at least one prominent entrepreneur whom we interviewed in July 1996 found Yerevan a more hospitable place to do business than other post-Soviet cities. Once inside the system, he reported, the payment scheme was standardized and direct, while in Moscow various amounts had to be paid to a wide range of legal and illegal enforcement agencies and officials.
5. Some of these disputes lent themselves to logical structural resolution: tax collection, for instance, naturally fell under the aegis of Internal Affairs. Others were resolved through compromise, as when the two "power" ministries agreed to split the profits on gasoline imports.
6. In a July 1996 interview with the authors, one presidential advisor sympathetic to Siradeghian defended that minister's stance by pleading the unusual difficulty of Armenia's situation: "You can't have federal [i.e., local] police in a small state, especially one with such security and smuggling concerns. It might make more sense bureaucratically - and even give more freedom to Armenia's citizens - but that is not what is needed now. Yerevan needs to have control."
7. Nora Dudwick, "The Mirage of Democracy: A Study of Post-Communist Transition in Armenia" (paper presented at the Workshop on Post-Communist Democratization and Political Participation, Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, Washington, D.C., 16-17 November 1995).
8. Opposition parties have often charged that Western countries send money to Armenia through Armenian-government channels because they see Ter-Petrosian as the only hope for democracy and stable relations between Yerevan and Moscow. Vasken Manukian has succinctly explained the problem with this approach: "If you support the government, you destroy democracy. Did the Americans ever say that Jefferson, Hamilton, and Madison were the only democrats in America? No! They said they were all bastards, and so emphasized institutions that embraced a system of checks and balances. But that is precisely what they are failing to do now in Armenia." Interview with the authors, July 1996.
9. Azg (Yerevan), 1 June 1996; and United Nations Human Development Programme, Armenia Human Development Report 1996, 14.
10. An English translation of the 1995 Constitution can be found in the Armenia and Karabagh Factbook (Washington, D.C.: Armenian Assembly of America, 1996), 90-106.
11. Armenia's 37 oblasts were consolidated into ten governorates (called marzes; a governor is a marzpet) with budgets drawn up by the central government. While a UN report on Armenia's political development claims that the creation of marzes "brings state governance closer to the people, making it more accessible," it would be more accurate to say that the new structure brings regions closer to the center, making them more easily controlled. Armenia Human Development Report 1996, 20.
12. Local Armenian organizations insisted that they were neither.
13. Excerpts from a transcript of this gathering were printed in Aijm (Yerevan), 26 February 1997.
14. The increase in energy production was due mainly to the reopening of the Medzamor nuclear plant outside Yerevan.
15. Armenia Human Development Report 1996, 5.
16. Noyan Tapan (Yerevan), 12 June 1996.