Populism in Armenia

The author of the research Edgar Vardanyan has used Cas Mudde`s definition of “populism” as a ‘thin-centered ideology, that considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogenous and antagonistic groups, ‘the pure people’ and ‘the corrupt elite’, and which argues that politics should be an expression of volonte generale (general will) of the people”. Populism in this sense has an anti-pluralistic, anti-liberal nature and it is not a synonym of demagoguery, which can only be one of populism`s features.

The author researched various texts of the leaders of 10 active political forces in Armenia to identify the main themes, narratives and peculiarities of populistic rhetoric in Armenia, and to measure the level of populistic discourses in the texts of political leaders. The main method of research was textual analysis. The study relies on the methods used by Team Populism and Guardian to analyze the populistic rhetoric of political leaders of different countries, especially the “holistic grading” method. The author scored the texts from 0 to 2, where 0 is given to non-populistic texts, 1 means that the texts are rated as somewhat populist, and 2 means that the texts are strongly populist. Vardanyan measured the texts of political leaders on the bases of specific questions which belong to the main features of populistic discourse.

The study found that none of the texts of Armenian politicians can be rated as non-populist. Among the most influential of the sampled politicians the texts Edmon Marukyan were graded as somewhat populist, Nikol Pashinyan was rated as populist (middle level) while the texts of Gagik Tsarukyan, Ishkhan Saghatelyan, Armen Ashotyan and Vazgen Manukyan were rated as strongly populist. The latter’s texts can be rated as far right populistic because they meet the main criteria of this style of populism - they are full of elements of anti-pluralism, nativism, social conservatism and intolerance.

The main narratives of Armenian populistic discourse are: “attacks on Armenian traditional values, on the Armenian Apostolic Church,” “Revanchist conspiracies of oligarchic groups of the past,” “conspiracy attacks of geopolitical centers on the sovereignty of Armenia,” “betrayal of the Armenian authorities,” “Armenia on sale,” “conspiracies of globalists,” “conspiracies of The West,” “KGB agent`s net,” ”Anti-Russian provocations, ”anti-people policies of authorities.”