Today’s Armenia is in an ideological impasse. The current government, represented by the Prime Minister, says that they do not have “isms,” that is, they do not profess any ideology. On June 14, during the election of a new board of the Civil Contract party, he said:
“We are often called liberal or centrist, but this is a misunderstanding, because we are a party that rejected “isms,” because in the modern world there are no more stereotypical ideologies. Politically, we are not liberals, we are not centrists, we are not social democrats, we are a civic party. What does this mean in practice? This means that we put ourselves outside ideological standards and form a new ideological plane based on four key pillars: statehood, citizenship, national identity, individuality.”
The four “pillars” mentioned by the Prime Minister can become a base for the right, left, green, and nationalists, even pacifists, depending on who and how interprets these “pillars”. Simply put, pointing to the “pillars” means nothing.
Political parties that have not yet had time to recover, or those who are still showing signs of life after last year’s change of power, criticize the Prime Minister, saying that the absence of “isms” means the absence of the political line that the government should follow. There are other opinions that the current government, nevertheless, has a certain “ism,” and this is populism. Our goal is not to interfere in the debate, but to try to understand whether political ideologies have exhausted themselves, even in the form of “non-stereotypical” ones, or not.
If you look at the parties registered in the European Union, you will see that the "isms" are well represented there:
- Liberals: Alliance of Liberals and Democrats, European People's Party;
- Socialists: European Christian Political Movement, European Socialist Party, European Left Party;
- Greens: European Green Party;
- Conservatives: European Party of Conservatives and Reformists, etc.
The list goes on: there are centrists, nationalists, Eurosceptics and many others.
By the way, without ideology, the Civil Contract party cannot decide which European party to become a part of.
Political ideologies are considered in two dimensions:
- how should society be organized;
- how to achieve this goal.
As we have shown, in the modern world social ideologies still exist. oreover, the lack of ideology, particularly in Europe, means the absence of ideological partners, which is problematic for Armenia. But this is another topic for discussion.
In the new round of intra-Armenian political struggle, the central debate will mainly concern the direction of the country's development: how we imagine the form of organization of society in Armenia in the future, and how will it be achieved, that is, what will be the future state program, development paths, roadmap? If the ruling party continues to pursue a policy of rejecting “isms,” then the debate will take place without its participation, no matter how strange this situation may be.
The big step was made for the establishment of the advocacy institute. About a hundred lawyers have opted for an independent judiciary. They should be thanked.
Now it is the judges' turn. If judges can also come together to defend their independence, this will be a huge step towards creating an independent judiciary.
Special thanks should be expressed to Nikol Pashinyan, who through his unprecedented unconstitutional actions in relation to the judicial system contributes to the creation of a legal and judicial system. This is his only promise, for the fulfillment of which he takes concrete and consistent steps.
Thanks also to Gagik Dzhangiryan and Vahe Grigoryan for blurring the clearly defined separation of “black and white,” which made people start to perceive life not emotionally-instinctively, but to judge by principles.