From ‘revolution’ to war: deciphering Armenia’s populist foreign policy-making process

Abstract

Since April 2018, Armenia has gone through a series of dramatic events. Convinced of its ‘democratic invincibility,’ the regime that emerged after ‘the Velvet Revolution’ espoused the view that Armenia’s new, democratic facade must secure increased support from Brussels and Washington and continued loyalty from its security provider–the Kremlin. Nevertheless, the perennial security issues, chief among them the unresolved Nagorno Karabakh conflict, were overlooked by the new elite. This article examines the sources of the foreign policy-making style of the populist regime in Armenia and explores the extent to which they have affected the decision-making process and its ‘resultants.’ The article argues that the incoherent and erratic nature of the new regime’s policy formulation and enactment, which underestimated acute security challenges and degraded existing institutional checks and balances, caused unprecedented wreckage to Armenia’s national security architecture.