Post-protest Attitudes in the Armenian Society

Results of a study conducted one year after mass protests in Armenia (‘Velvet Revolution’) of spring 2018 are presented and discussed in the article. The aim of the study is to examine public attitudes towards gains and outcomes of the power change in Armenia, towards effectiveness of new ruling elites, as well as to measure rating of prime-minister Nikol Pashinyan and level of public support for the post-revolutionary elites. One of the hypotheses is that being a protest leader, Pashinyan is still perceived separately from institutional forms of political power, so that growing gap between public trust to him personally and to political institutions and other individual representatives will continue feeding his authoritarian leadership. While personal image of Pashinyan is still based on his direct communication with public both offline and online, political institutions are criticized for the lack of political reforms directed to acute socio-economic problems; if deepened, this critics might finally question legitimacy of Pashinyan himself. Besides, although former opposition came to power with slogans of struggle against authoritarian regime of the previous elites, there is still a high risk of reproducing of the same authoritarian political culture in a new populist form.

Keywords

mass political protests, ‘Velvet Revolution’, public attitudes, trust, leadership

Acknowledgment

The research was supported by Southern Federal University, Rostov-on-Don, Russia. The authors thank colleagues for their support in the field studies.

Received

27.02.2020

Publication date

16.03.2020

Number of characters

21186

Cite

GOST	Atanesyan A., Posukhova O. Post-protest Attitudes in the Armenian Society // Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya – 2020. – Issue 2 C. 53-62 [Electronic resource]. URL: http://ras.jes.su/socis/s013216250008494-6-1-en (circulation date: 18.04.2024). DOI: 10.31857/S013216250008494-6
MLA	Atanesyan, Arthur V, Posukhova, Oxana Yu. "Post-protest Attitudes in the Armenian Society." Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya 2 (2020):53-62. DOI: 10.31857/S013216250008494-6
APA	Atanesyan A., Posukhova O. (2020). Post-protest Attitudes in the Armenian Society. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya (2), pp.53-62 DOI: 10.31857/S013216250008494-6

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