Environmental activism in Armenia

Abstract

This capstone investigates environmental movements in Armenia. It studies whether environmental movements and civic initiatives have an influence on policy-making. Influence is defined by categories of change, modification, and delay of policies. To determine the applicability of these categories to different cases twelve environmental movements and civic initiatives from 2007 to 2014 are studied by systematically compiling and analyzing information from a number of online sources, such as news websites, social media websites and websites specialized on civic activism and environmental issues. Two of the twelve cases are analyzed in-depth. The interplay between online and offline activism is also included into the study. It was found that in eight cases out of twelve there was some form of influence (either change, modification or delay). Physical 24/7 presence of activists on site was shown to be one of the factors that help create impact. Mining industry shows the greatest immunity to civic activism. In addition, three models of relations between online and offline activisms were identified and applied to the in-depth case studies.