ARMENIAN MODEL OF DEMOCRACY
As we know, the PACE is to hold a hearing devoted to Armenia in its summer session which is going to be convened in a couple of days. Not only our country’s post-electoral situation but also the situation with democracy in general will become a subject of discussion. In other words, a discussion will be held around the issue whether Armenia can be considered a democratic state.
Contradictory assessments are being made on the current state of the native political system. The radical opposition considers our political regime anti-democratic; moreover, it insists that the regime existing in our country is tyranny. The activists who are at the helm of state or are close to those circles assure us that certain national peculiarities in the development of the native statehood do not absolutely rule out its general democratic trend.
On the one hand, it is impossible to deny that our citizens have incomparably more rights and liberties than do the residents of classical authoritarian states.
On the other hand, we can’t fail to notice the problems related to the same rights and liberties, the political rivalry, the separation of the branches of power and other issues.
However, the fact that our country’s current political system is not by any way democratic (with a “plus” or “minus”, depending on the viewpoints) cannot give way to doubts for a person who is more or less objective.
One may often hear the opinion that democracy in our reality is controllable. In the meantime, it is often forgotten that democracy, as a form of state, cannot be uncontrollable at all. What is different are the means, styles and methods of governing the democratic processes by bureaucracy – the inevitable product of any statehood. Therefore, in order to characterize our country’s present-day political regime in an equivalent manner, it is necessary to concretize the type and level of such governance.
It may seem at first sight, especially in view the existence of the coalition, that power in our reality belongs to the political parties. However, it does not quite correspond to the reality. As a matter of fact, the monopoly of state government belongs to bureaucracy which consistently strengthens its own positions. And that happens for several reasons:
First: The feeling of tiredness of the 1990’s reforms is still maintained in society, and a demand for stability is being observed. And the guarantor of stability has always been bureaucracy in any place of the world.
Second: The consolidation of bureaucracy. This condition is of utmost importance for overcoming rivalry and establishing monopoly over the authorities. The internal conflicts are naturally maintained, but they are pushed to the background.
Third: The weakness and disruption of the liberal political forces (the “movement” of the neobolsheviks has nothing in common with the liberal movement). And the weaker society’s resistance against bureaucracy, the more it becomes prevalent.
As was already mentioned, the existing system of bureaucratic power should, nonetheless, be considered as a variety of the democratic regime. At least because such bureaucracy is established through the expression of the people’s will vs. the use of force (regardless the fact what the revolutionaries say in that connection).
We can’t say that bureaucracy reflects the radical interests of society, but the democratic elite demonstrates an extremely sensitive attitude towards the moods existing there. For classical authoritarianism our state government system is like a velvet regime in which the bureaucratic class strives to safeguard itself against instabilities. The aggressive state ideology comes to be replaced by the massive psychology of “enrichment and consummation”.
If there’s something negative, it is the absence of traditions of such political rivalry that does not produce an undermining effect on the foundations of the state. Whoever wins in our reality, receives everything, and whoever turns out a loser becomes an exile. That’s why the political struggle begins with “battles without rules” and ends with the scenes of the March 1 events.
So, in order to fill the existing gaps and build a real democratic state, we need time. Even the United States which is truly considered the lighthouse of democracy had to pass a long way to achieve that. And the liberties were formed from the bottom layers of society. Only in the 6th decade of the XX century did the human rights movement achieve a true equality of rights for the black under the leadership of Martin Luther King.
In other word, democracy is a process, a struggle which requires a great patience. There are neither licensed solutions nor prescriptions of drugs with a speedy effect.
- VARDAN BARSEGHYAN
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