Day: September 15, 2023
Categories
Conflicts
This theme embraces the study of ethnopolitical conflicts in the South Caucasus. It has three main focus areas: (1) assessing the current status and the risks of escalation, (2) proposing innovative theoretical approaches, and (3) putting the conflict in a wider historical and geographical perspective. This theme includes research papers.
- The Conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh after Two Decades: an Inevitable Prolongation of the Status Quo? by Dr Sergey Minasyan, Head of Political Studies at CI, was presented to the public in October 2010. Mr Arman Melikyan, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, reviewed and criticized the research paper, followed by a discussion of current trends and approaches to the conflict, the risks of war and how they can be mitigated.
- Nagorno-Karabakh: Paradoxes of Power and Weakness in an Asymmetric Conflict, by Prof. Larisa Deriglazova of Tomsk State University and Dr. Sergey Minasyan of CI, was presented and discussed in January 21, 2011. It was reviewed and criticized by Major-General Hayk S. Kotandjian, Head of the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the Ministry of Defense of Armenia. The ensuing discussion focused on how the theory of asymmetric conflicts can be applied to this and other conflicts in the South Caucasus, and what the added value of such an approach can be.
- De-Facto Entities In The Post Soviet Space: Twenty Years Of Statebuilding: authored by Sergey Markedonov, a scholar currently working in the U.S. The research paper presents the dynamics of state-building and post-conflict recovery in Abkhasia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Transdniestria and South Ossetia in a comparative perspective, looking at the prospects of the breakaway de-facto states, their domestic development and challenges. The paper was presented to the wider public on May 3, 2012 in order to attract media attention on the eve of the “day of silence” prior to the parliamentary election in Armenia.
Efforts towards widening the perspective on conflict and promote reliance on international experience were launched in 2011, when the CI co-organized (with International Alert) two series of events (discussion with leading journalists, a closed meeting with members of political parties, a public conference, lectures for students and meetings with public officials) to attract public attention to the experience of other ethnopolitical conflicts: Northern Ireland, Cyprus, Indonesia/Timor Leste and the Philippines /Mindanao.
Categories
Transformations
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Within this theme, we study the transformation, building and consolidation of democratic institutions in Armenia and the South Caucasus. The main goal of activities within this theme is to encourage a rational discourse about existing problems and trends in nation-building, based on empirical facts and modern political theory, and to promote technologically sound solutions relying on international experience in the area.
The theme includes
- The Annual Caucasus Conference, an international event that brings together experts from the South Caucasus (Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia), Russia (including the Northern Caucasus), Turkey, the U.S. and the E.U. to assess and discuss the situation with governance, transition and development in the region. The Caucasus Conference is the only regular debate format in Armenia that offers a comparative aspect of the region, looks at both domestic and external factors, and gauges development trends and challenges per country.
- The Caucasus Yearbook, a volume in Russian based on presentations made at the Caucasus Conference; it contains the results of research on nation-building, democratization, development, regional and European integration of the Caucasus. The papers look at each country of the South Caucasus and at its de-facto states, at the Northern Caucasus as a whole, and at the role of external players in the region (the West, Russia and Turkey).
- Identities, Ideologies and Institutions. A Decade of Insight into the Caucasus: 2001-2011. A collection of papers in English, written for CI between 2002 and 2011 on a variety of topics, ranging from religion and oil to color revolutions. The papers were chosen based on their insight, original angle and the fact that they remained topical, as the ideas and predictions have remained valid to this day even for papers written in the early 2000s.
- Heinrich Böll Foundation Public Debates in Yerevan launched in October 2012 in cooperation with the Heinrich Boell Foundation. The topics of the debates are pressing policy issues. Each round of the debates has several speakers with contrasting opinions, representing government, civil society and academia. and result in an intense pluralistic discussion.
- Elites and Informalities in Armenia: a pilot study launched in September 2012 in cooperation with the ASCN. Informality is little understood in the South Caucasus but highly important in political and economic life; the new project is expected to break the ground.
The Nations in Transit report on Armenia; for five consecutive years, it has been produced by CI director Alexander Iskandaryan with the help of CI researcher Hrant Mikaelyan.
Categories
Media
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The Caucasus Institute has engaged in media studies since its establishment in 2002, placing them in a context of political science and sociology rather than just communication studies. We have conducted media research in a variety of formats and using various methods, including:
- Armenian Media Quality Assessment, 2004-2007, a joint study conducted by the CI and the Institute of Applied Media Studies, Zurich University of Applied Sciences. Тwo papers were published in English: one on print media and the other on broadcast media. The study focused on elaborating a methodology for assessing media quality in transition countries and the extent to which the media are fulfilling their role to promote democracy. The methodology was then given a test run using Armenian media as a case study.
- Post Soviet Media: From Propaganda To Journalism: an international conference and a volume edited by Vicken Cheterian and Nina Iskandaryan (Yerevan: CI, 2005. – 192 p.). The conference and the volume took forward the debate around the role played by news media in the post-totalitarian countries of the former USSR and Eastern Europe. Contributors included scholars from post-Soviet countries, Eastern and Western Europe.
- Monitoring of the media coverage of elections in 2007 using CoE methodology, and in 2012, using in-house CI methodology (content-analysis of socially relevant campaigning by political parties).
- Several studies based on media content analysis and aimed at understanding the quality and content of current discourses, including Tolerance in Armenian Mass Media. CI Policy Brief #1, 2009; Nationalism in Armenian Media. CI Policy Brief #4, 2011; and: Armenia and the Armenians, Turkey and the Turks in Armenian Media Coverage. CI Policy Brief #3, 2010 (all available online in Armenian and English).
- A sociological study of media markets and media sustainability strategies, called Media Environment And Attitudes To Media In Armenia and published as CI Policy Brief #2, 2010, in Armenian, English and Russian.
Apart from this, the CI produced research on the media published in its collections of papers, looking at media development trends, roles, post-Soviet history of the media etc.
This theme has two components: assessing research capacities in Armenia, especially in the area of political and social sciences, and improving them via the inclusion of Armenian research bodies in international scholarly discourses, networks and partnerships.
The theme includes:
Since 2006, as part of its partnership with the South Caucasus Bureau of the Heinrich Boell Foundation, the CI has been engaged in the implementation of the HBF Scholarship Program in the South Caucasus, a unique program which young social and political scientists from the three countries of the South Caucasus are awarded research scholarships, given scientific guidance by prominent local and international scholars, and trained at winter and summer schools. Every year the CI organizes the call for proposals in Armenia, and the CI Director serves as a mentor on this program.
The Local Coordination Unit of the ASCN in Armenia, operating at CI since 2011, as a new format for consolidating and capacity-building of policy research in Armenia. A stakeholder meeting was held on February 25, 2011 with representatives of leading think-tanks, NGO and academic bodies active in the area. Current ASCN activities in Armenia also include an exchange program for MA students of social sciences; under it, Armenian study during one semester at Swiss universities. There is also the possibility of short grants for PhD students to go to Swiss universities for 1 to 3 months.
In July 2011 the CI produced, with the support of the U.S. Embassy, the Armenian translation of “Democracies in Danger” under the edition of Alfred Stepan. This fundamental volume represents latest achievements of Americans in the field of political science. The book is especially important for our society given its great practical importance. It summarizes the political situations in the countries of Central and Eastern America, Latin America, Asia and Africa.
Internships at CI for young scholars and students. Over the years, dozens of interns from Armenia, the EU and the US have worked at CI, including
- 2002 Niculin Jaeger, currently Deputy Head of the Swiss Embassy in Mosambique
- 2009 Ashley Killough, Fulbright Fellow
- 2009 Thomas Burns, Fulbright Fellow
- 2010 Franziska Smolnik, currently Research Fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, Freie Universität Berlin
- 2012 Richard White, Carleton University, Canada
Categories
Armenian-Turkish Relations
The Caucasus Institute (CI) in Yerevan, Armenia, was one of the first organizations to launch Armenia-Turkey civil society rapprochement initiative starting from 2005.
The activities had different components and were realized with the support of various partners and donors including the Swiss Development and Cooperation (SDC), UNDP, the Heinrich Böll Foundation, the EU and others, resulting in partnerships with the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV), Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey (TEPAV) and Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research (SETA), the leading think-tanks in Turkey.
Conferences and roundtables in Yerevan and Turkey had attendance on vice-ministerial level and activities received media coverage on national scale in both countries. Publications and policy papers were positively received by policy-makers and International Organizations.
The rapprochement that began in spring 2008 was to a large degree the result of advocacy by Turkish civil society and of the fact that relations with Armenia had become part of the domestic discourse; to both, CI has made an important contribution.
The first CI Research Paper published in 2010 entitled Pragmatic Policies vs. Historical Constraints: Analyzing Armenia-Turkey Relations, summarizes the research outcome in this sphere done by CI over the previous five years.