Pub Date : 2022-03-22DOI: 10.30965/23761202-20220008
Naira Sahakyan
In May 2018 a democratic breakthrough occurred in Armenia known as the Velvet Revolution. The leader of the protests was Nikol Pashinyan, who after the resignation of Serzh Sargsyan became the prime minister of Armenia. Pashinyan’s coming to power coincidentally overlapped with the celebrations of the centennial of the First Republic of Armenia, which, particularly in the post-Soviet era, is largely considered to be the point marking the revival of Armenian statehood. Based on the congratulatory remarks and speeches by Pashinyan, this article argues that the leader of the Velvet Revolution used a language that united the principles of the First Republic with the ‘Velvet’ ideas. By drawing links between 1918 and 2018, Pashinyan claimed that the post-Velvet Armenia was regenerating the democratic values inherent to the pre-Soviet spirit of the Armenian people. This was a convenient strategy for Pashinyan for avoiding the image of the Revolution as an anti-Russian step supported by the West. Thus, during the celebrations of the First Republic, Pashinyan linked the idea of democracy to the First Republic of Armenia and represented the Velvet Revolution as a revival of the values that were suppressed during the Soviet era and the first decades of post-Soviet Armenia. However, by giving a narrow focus to the discourse of democracy which dominated the whole Caucasus region after the collapse of the Russian Empire, by representing Armenians as an elemental source of democracy and by linking their democratic breakthroughs with the notion of survival, Pashinyan elaborated a nationalist narrative rather than a democratic one.
{"title":"Searching for Democracy, Finding Nationalism","authors":"Naira Sahakyan","doi":"10.30965/23761202-20220008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/23761202-20220008","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000In May 2018 a democratic breakthrough occurred in Armenia known as the Velvet Revolution. The leader of the protests was Nikol Pashinyan, who after the resignation of Serzh Sargsyan became the prime minister of Armenia. Pashinyan’s coming to power coincidentally overlapped with the celebrations of the centennial of the First Republic of Armenia, which, particularly in the post-Soviet era, is largely considered to be the point marking the revival of Armenian statehood. Based on the congratulatory remarks and speeches by Pashinyan, this article argues that the leader of the Velvet Revolution used a language that united the principles of the First Republic with the ‘Velvet’ ideas. By drawing links between 1918 and 2018, Pashinyan claimed that the post-Velvet Armenia was regenerating the democratic values inherent to the pre-Soviet spirit of the Armenian people. This was a convenient strategy for Pashinyan for avoiding the image of the Revolution as an anti-Russian step supported by the West. Thus, during the celebrations of the First Republic, Pashinyan linked the idea of democracy to the First Republic of Armenia and represented the Velvet Revolution as a revival of the values that were suppressed during the Soviet era and the first decades of post-Soviet Armenia. However, by giving a narrow focus to the discourse of democracy which dominated the whole Caucasus region after the collapse of the Russian Empire, by representing Armenians as an elemental source of democracy and by linking their democratic breakthroughs with the notion of survival, Pashinyan elaborated a nationalist narrative rather than a democratic one.","PeriodicalId":37506,"journal":{"name":"Caucasus Survey","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2022-03-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45290877","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-03-22DOI: 10.30965/23761202-20220001
Chelsea L. Cervantes de Blois, Jeremy Tasch, R. Abbasov
Relating social inequality and vulnerability to environmental hazards is an especially challenging task in regions with a paucity of data. Researchers attempting to measure the potential environmental and human impacts of past and continuing industrial toxicity in Azerbaijan have often either questioned the reliability of environmental indicators disclosed by the state’s official statistics or found the government’s environmental and population data partial and incomplete. To contribute to a clearer description of the human impacts of toxic waste locations and to assist other researchers, we use a novel methodology. By overlaying data from Azerbaijan’s Toxic Site Identification Program (TSIP) onto national census population data – augmented with in-country interviews – we can map the inequitable distribution of infant mortality, unemployment, and toxic waste sites to better suggest some of the places and people in particular need of environmental mitigation and health, and economic intervention. This method is transferable to future research in the Caucasus, Eurasia, and other data- poor areas.
{"title":"Azerbaijan’s Social Inequality and Vulnerability to Environmental Hazards","authors":"Chelsea L. Cervantes de Blois, Jeremy Tasch, R. Abbasov","doi":"10.30965/23761202-20220001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/23761202-20220001","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Relating social inequality and vulnerability to environmental hazards is an especially challenging task in regions with a paucity of data. Researchers attempting to measure the potential environmental and human impacts of past and continuing industrial toxicity in Azerbaijan have often either questioned the reliability of environmental indicators disclosed by the state’s official statistics or found the government’s environmental and population data partial and incomplete. To contribute to a clearer description of the human impacts of toxic waste locations and to assist other researchers, we use a novel methodology. By overlaying data from Azerbaijan’s Toxic Site Identification Program (TSIP) onto national census population data – augmented with in-country interviews – we can map the inequitable distribution of infant mortality, unemployment, and toxic waste sites to better suggest some of the places and people in particular need of environmental mitigation and health, and economic intervention. This method is transferable to future research in the Caucasus, Eurasia, and other data- poor areas.","PeriodicalId":37506,"journal":{"name":"Caucasus Survey","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2022-03-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45313360","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-09-02DOI: 10.1080/23761199.2021.1975975
Stephen F. Jones, Malkhaz Toria
The study of memory, and of history, grew alongside the nationalist revival in the 1980s and 1990s. The bloody conflicts in the Balkans and the collapse of communism in Eastern and Central Europe, revived academic interest in nationalism, and with it an examination of how “useable pasts” could be exploited and manipulated by nationalist elites. The study of memory and its relationship to history and identity underwent a period of “creative and intensive development” in the 1990s (Tota and Hagen 2016, 1). In post-Soviet states, national identity and memory were inextricably linked to the risk of social “amnesia or forgetfulness” (Simine 2013, 14). The forgetting of history and the erasure of memory was central to Soviet life before 1991. Pierre Nora’s assertion that “we speak so much of memory because there is so little of it left” (Simine 2013, 14; Nora 1989, 7), can also describe the great anxiety experienced by Georgians to this day. The interest in memory studies in Georgia emerged after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The new national governments (and the Orthodox Church) embarked on reviving pre-Soviet memory, constructing a new story of national beginnings, intertwined with heroic kings and saints. Bringing back “lost” historical memories became central to the domestic contest between Georgia’s political parties, as well as to the reinterpretation of Georgia’s relations with Russia and Europe. For example, the “silenced”memories of the Democratic Republic of Georgia (DRG) (1918-1921) became an effective mnemonic bridge, which connected the new independent state after 1991 with its democratic and pro-European predecessor. New political elites in the early 1990s instrumentalized the short-lived Georgian republic in 1918-21, whose existence was ended by the Red Army, as a foundation for the legitimate restoration of Georgia’s independence in 1991. Historical analogy was a mnemonic tool which represented Russia (and not just the Soviet Union) as a historical aggressor and occupier. However, in the 2000s, the DRG was forgotten once more, this time the victim of a neo-liberal ideology which rejected the DRG’s social democratic foundations (Jones 2021). But during the RussoGeorgian war in 2008, parallels between the Soviet Russian occupation in 1921 and the attack in 2008 were reiterated in the media to aid the mobilization of national sentiments around the common threat to the country’s territorial integrity (Toria 2014). The DRG was revived as a “usable past.”
{"title":"Introduction: Rethinking Memory Sites and Symbolic Realms of Georgian National Identity","authors":"Stephen F. Jones, Malkhaz Toria","doi":"10.1080/23761199.2021.1975975","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23761199.2021.1975975","url":null,"abstract":"The study of memory, and of history, grew alongside the nationalist revival in the 1980s and 1990s. The bloody conflicts in the Balkans and the collapse of communism in Eastern and Central Europe, revived academic interest in nationalism, and with it an examination of how “useable pasts” could be exploited and manipulated by nationalist elites. The study of memory and its relationship to history and identity underwent a period of “creative and intensive development” in the 1990s (Tota and Hagen 2016, 1). In post-Soviet states, national identity and memory were inextricably linked to the risk of social “amnesia or forgetfulness” (Simine 2013, 14). The forgetting of history and the erasure of memory was central to Soviet life before 1991. Pierre Nora’s assertion that “we speak so much of memory because there is so little of it left” (Simine 2013, 14; Nora 1989, 7), can also describe the great anxiety experienced by Georgians to this day. The interest in memory studies in Georgia emerged after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The new national governments (and the Orthodox Church) embarked on reviving pre-Soviet memory, constructing a new story of national beginnings, intertwined with heroic kings and saints. Bringing back “lost” historical memories became central to the domestic contest between Georgia’s political parties, as well as to the reinterpretation of Georgia’s relations with Russia and Europe. For example, the “silenced”memories of the Democratic Republic of Georgia (DRG) (1918-1921) became an effective mnemonic bridge, which connected the new independent state after 1991 with its democratic and pro-European predecessor. New political elites in the early 1990s instrumentalized the short-lived Georgian republic in 1918-21, whose existence was ended by the Red Army, as a foundation for the legitimate restoration of Georgia’s independence in 1991. Historical analogy was a mnemonic tool which represented Russia (and not just the Soviet Union) as a historical aggressor and occupier. However, in the 2000s, the DRG was forgotten once more, this time the victim of a neo-liberal ideology which rejected the DRG’s social democratic foundations (Jones 2021). But during the RussoGeorgian war in 2008, parallels between the Soviet Russian occupation in 1921 and the attack in 2008 were reiterated in the media to aid the mobilization of national sentiments around the common threat to the country’s territorial integrity (Toria 2014). The DRG was revived as a “usable past.”","PeriodicalId":37506,"journal":{"name":"Caucasus Survey","volume":"9 1","pages":"211 - 219"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2021-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48060545","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-09-02DOI: 10.1080/23761199.2021.1970914
Malkhaz Toria, Bejan Javakhia
ABSTRACT Territorial integrity is one of the central tropes in contemporary Georgian cultural memory and historical imaginaries. The article traces when, how, and why the narrative of the “miraculous victory” of medieval Georgian King David IV the Builder over Seljuk Turks in the Battle of Didgori in August 1121 and his seizing of Tbilisi entered the Georgian “realms of memory”. This complex and often contradictory mnemonic legacy, shaped by medieval, imperial (Tsarist and Soviet), and nation-state (the First Republic and post-Soviet Georgia) conjunctures, feeds the current representations of this military success as a symbol of the unification of the Georgian state. In the Soviet and post-Soviet “regimes of memory”, the story of Didgori and reconquering Tbilisi became intertwined with territorial nationalism. In the unilinear Soviet Georgian narrative, these victories appear as “progressive” and unifying occurrences. In the post-Soviet period, ethnoreligious nationalism and re-sacralization of David’s image and the challenges to the country’s territorial integrity motivated Georgians to zoom in and magnify selected images of the glorious past. These historical events represent a fateful and luminous episode in the nation’s history that fed hope for an analogous victory and restoration of the country’s territorial integrity.
{"title":"Representing fateful events and imagining territorial integrity in Georgia: cultural memory of David the Builder and the Battle of Didgori","authors":"Malkhaz Toria, Bejan Javakhia","doi":"10.1080/23761199.2021.1970914","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23761199.2021.1970914","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Territorial integrity is one of the central tropes in contemporary Georgian cultural memory and historical imaginaries. The article traces when, how, and why the narrative of the “miraculous victory” of medieval Georgian King David IV the Builder over Seljuk Turks in the Battle of Didgori in August 1121 and his seizing of Tbilisi entered the Georgian “realms of memory”. This complex and often contradictory mnemonic legacy, shaped by medieval, imperial (Tsarist and Soviet), and nation-state (the First Republic and post-Soviet Georgia) conjunctures, feeds the current representations of this military success as a symbol of the unification of the Georgian state. In the Soviet and post-Soviet “regimes of memory”, the story of Didgori and reconquering Tbilisi became intertwined with territorial nationalism. In the unilinear Soviet Georgian narrative, these victories appear as “progressive” and unifying occurrences. In the post-Soviet period, ethnoreligious nationalism and re-sacralization of David’s image and the challenges to the country’s territorial integrity motivated Georgians to zoom in and magnify selected images of the glorious past. These historical events represent a fateful and luminous episode in the nation’s history that fed hope for an analogous victory and restoration of the country’s territorial integrity.","PeriodicalId":37506,"journal":{"name":"Caucasus Survey","volume":"9 1","pages":"270 - 285"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2021-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48832135","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-09-02DOI: 10.1080/23761199.2021.1961552
I. Chkhaidze, Ketevan Kakitelashvili
ABSTRACT The paper deals with the multifaceted representation of Georgian public figure Ilia Chavchavadze (1837–1907). Paradoxically, he is treated as a great and gifted son of Georgia by various and sometimes drastically different segments of modern Georgian society. In the framework of memory studies, Ilia is a stunning example of how certain historical figures are manipulated by different regimes to legitimize their power and/or to stake their political claims. For the Soviet regime, he was a fighter for equality and revolutionary changes. By researching different attitudes towards Ilia from the historical perspective and using theories of cultural memory, numerous questions related to controversial interpretations of Ilia Chavchavadze’s activities will be answered. The aim of the given research is to analyze the narrative dynamics surrounding Ilia Chavchavadze’s personality and to analyze the struggle between narratives which ended in the complete triumph of the official policy of memory within a strict ideological framework. We focus on the nature and reasons for the dramatic transformations of Ilia Chavchavadze’s image in different political and social contexts.
{"title":"A national figure as a memory site: reinterpretations of Ilia Chavchavadze in the 1910s–1940s","authors":"I. Chkhaidze, Ketevan Kakitelashvili","doi":"10.1080/23761199.2021.1961552","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23761199.2021.1961552","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The paper deals with the multifaceted representation of Georgian public figure Ilia Chavchavadze (1837–1907). Paradoxically, he is treated as a great and gifted son of Georgia by various and sometimes drastically different segments of modern Georgian society. In the framework of memory studies, Ilia is a stunning example of how certain historical figures are manipulated by different regimes to legitimize their power and/or to stake their political claims. For the Soviet regime, he was a fighter for equality and revolutionary changes. By researching different attitudes towards Ilia from the historical perspective and using theories of cultural memory, numerous questions related to controversial interpretations of Ilia Chavchavadze’s activities will be answered. The aim of the given research is to analyze the narrative dynamics surrounding Ilia Chavchavadze’s personality and to analyze the struggle between narratives which ended in the complete triumph of the official policy of memory within a strict ideological framework. We focus on the nature and reasons for the dramatic transformations of Ilia Chavchavadze’s image in different political and social contexts.","PeriodicalId":37506,"journal":{"name":"Caucasus Survey","volume":"9 1","pages":"220 - 234"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2021-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46397627","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-08-20DOI: 10.1080/23761199.2021.1966234
Maia Araviashvili, Konstantine Ladaria
ABSTRACT The article deals with constructing and/or reproducing sites of national memory and cultural heritage among Georgian immigrant communities in the USA (New York City) and Germany (Berlin and Regensburg). Georgian immigrant communities in the USA and Germany consist of “old” and “new” arrivals, with people of various ages as well as different professional and employment backgrounds. We try to address the questions: how do socio-economic challenges, legal immigration status, job opportunities and living conditions influence immigrants’ attitudes toward national identity and culture? How do plans to stay and integrate into host societies define the ways immigrants “practice” nationalism? The symbolic realm of Georgian immigrant communities in the USA and Germany consists of both tangible and intangible sites of national identity and memory, as well as cultural heritage. We reflect on how national identity is “crystalized” and represented in material and physical settings (churches, and icon corners at home, for instance) and in certain national, cultural, and religious practices. These practices as cultural expressions manifest in preserving the native language, adhering to the Christian faith, celebrating Orthodox Christian holidays, learning national songs and dances, maintaining traditional cuisine, and eating habits, and more.
{"title":"Constructing sites of memory and practising nationalism beyond the homeland: Georgian migrants in the USA and Germany","authors":"Maia Araviashvili, Konstantine Ladaria","doi":"10.1080/23761199.2021.1966234","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23761199.2021.1966234","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The article deals with constructing and/or reproducing sites of national memory and cultural heritage among Georgian immigrant communities in the USA (New York City) and Germany (Berlin and Regensburg). Georgian immigrant communities in the USA and Germany consist of “old” and “new” arrivals, with people of various ages as well as different professional and employment backgrounds. We try to address the questions: how do socio-economic challenges, legal immigration status, job opportunities and living conditions influence immigrants’ attitudes toward national identity and culture? How do plans to stay and integrate into host societies define the ways immigrants “practice” nationalism? The symbolic realm of Georgian immigrant communities in the USA and Germany consists of both tangible and intangible sites of national identity and memory, as well as cultural heritage. We reflect on how national identity is “crystalized” and represented in material and physical settings (churches, and icon corners at home, for instance) and in certain national, cultural, and religious practices. These practices as cultural expressions manifest in preserving the native language, adhering to the Christian faith, celebrating Orthodox Christian holidays, learning national songs and dances, maintaining traditional cuisine, and eating habits, and more.","PeriodicalId":37506,"journal":{"name":"Caucasus Survey","volume":"9 1","pages":"286 - 299"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2021-08-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43111036","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-14DOI: 10.1080/23761199.2021.1932068
Philip Gamaghelyan, S. Rumyantsev
ABSTRACT On September 27, 2020, the three-decades-long Nagorno-Karabakh conflict erupted into war. During 44 days of organized violence that claimed thousands of lives, the political leadership of Armenia and Azerbaijan along with public intellectuals, journalists, artists and ordinary citizens, continually and publicly expressed pro-war sentiments and confidence in their victory. This article examines the strategies of Azerbaijani and Armenian political and intellectual elites and the formation of myths and conflict narratives that steadily led the two societies towards the Second Karabakh War. It further examines the post-war discursive developments that are working to set Armenia and Azerbaijan on the path to a new round of destructive confrontation.
{"title":"The road to the Second Karabakh War: the role of ethno-centric narratives in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict","authors":"Philip Gamaghelyan, S. Rumyantsev","doi":"10.1080/23761199.2021.1932068","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23761199.2021.1932068","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT On September 27, 2020, the three-decades-long Nagorno-Karabakh conflict erupted into war. During 44 days of organized violence that claimed thousands of lives, the political leadership of Armenia and Azerbaijan along with public intellectuals, journalists, artists and ordinary citizens, continually and publicly expressed pro-war sentiments and confidence in their victory. This article examines the strategies of Azerbaijani and Armenian political and intellectual elites and the formation of myths and conflict narratives that steadily led the two societies towards the Second Karabakh War. It further examines the post-war discursive developments that are working to set Armenia and Azerbaijan on the path to a new round of destructive confrontation.","PeriodicalId":37506,"journal":{"name":"Caucasus Survey","volume":"9 1","pages":"320 - 336"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2021-07-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/23761199.2021.1932068","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42702940","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-06-24DOI: 10.1080/23761199.2021.1937878
Khatai Aliyev
ABSTRACT In responding to the Covid-19 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic, some policy responses to suppress and mitigate the disease’s socio-economic effects have been more effective than others. Despite resource wealth Azerbaijan has a problem with public trust in institutions, which is revealed in the responses to Covid-19, especially its economic impacts. This research employs a mixed-method approach to explore Azerbaijan’s Covid-19 policy response and its socio-economic effects. An explorative analysis reveals the country’s poor level of preparedness before the pandemic and ambiguous public opinion on the government’s anti-pandemic policies. A substantial part of the population reports low self-perceived satisfaction with life, their financial situation and social environment, and significant concerns about the strict quarantine regime’s long duration and high probability of being unemployed. In addition, people’s satisfaction with life, financial situation, and social environment are statistically significant correlates of public opinion on Azerbaijan’s Covid-19 policy response. Therefore, the government should reconsider its current Covid-19 policy responses for future crisis management policies. Long-term disruption of economic life could have high socio-economic costs and repercussions for well-being, create institutional distrust and bring further instabilities. Enhancing public trust in the state should be a top priority in the government agenda.
{"title":"An explorative analysis of Azerbaijan’s Covid-19 policy response and public opinion","authors":"Khatai Aliyev","doi":"10.1080/23761199.2021.1937878","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23761199.2021.1937878","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In responding to the Covid-19 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic, some policy responses to suppress and mitigate the disease’s socio-economic effects have been more effective than others. Despite resource wealth Azerbaijan has a problem with public trust in institutions, which is revealed in the responses to Covid-19, especially its economic impacts. This research employs a mixed-method approach to explore Azerbaijan’s Covid-19 policy response and its socio-economic effects. An explorative analysis reveals the country’s poor level of preparedness before the pandemic and ambiguous public opinion on the government’s anti-pandemic policies. A substantial part of the population reports low self-perceived satisfaction with life, their financial situation and social environment, and significant concerns about the strict quarantine regime’s long duration and high probability of being unemployed. In addition, people’s satisfaction with life, financial situation, and social environment are statistically significant correlates of public opinion on Azerbaijan’s Covid-19 policy response. Therefore, the government should reconsider its current Covid-19 policy responses for future crisis management policies. Long-term disruption of economic life could have high socio-economic costs and repercussions for well-being, create institutional distrust and bring further instabilities. Enhancing public trust in the state should be a top priority in the government agenda.","PeriodicalId":37506,"journal":{"name":"Caucasus Survey","volume":"9 1","pages":"300 - 319"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2021-06-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/23761199.2021.1937878","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44264067","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-05-04DOI: 10.1080/23761199.2021.1922866
T. Zakaryan
ABSTRACT Closed borders have enormously detrimental effects on landlocked economies which already face challenging constraints to connectivity. Due to the closed border with Turkey, Armenia has limited potential to develop favourable transit routes and to expand market access. This article presents a legal and political outline of the Turkish closure of the border. It examines the closure’s impact on the Turkish-Armenian presence in regional integration frameworks, and illustrates the limitations of Armenia’s available transit options.
{"title":"Landlocked with closed borders: Armenia’s problem of access to the sea","authors":"T. Zakaryan","doi":"10.1080/23761199.2021.1922866","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23761199.2021.1922866","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Closed borders have enormously detrimental effects on landlocked economies which already face challenging constraints to connectivity. Due to the closed border with Turkey, Armenia has limited potential to develop favourable transit routes and to expand market access. This article presents a legal and political outline of the Turkish closure of the border. It examines the closure’s impact on the Turkish-Armenian presence in regional integration frameworks, and illustrates the limitations of Armenia’s available transit options.","PeriodicalId":37506,"journal":{"name":"Caucasus Survey","volume":"9 1","pages":"192 - 208"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2021-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/23761199.2021.1922866","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49063476","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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