Typologies of political parties in Armenia

Abstract

The essay explores the ideological or programmatic commitments of Armenian political parties. Party programs are important as they provide guidelines for citizens to understand and identify the party policies on given issues. Simultaneously, programs are also a “soft contract” or moral commitment between parties and voters. Moreover, the permanent availability of programs, through the electoral mandate, serves to check the adherence to the electoral promises and to further promote accountability. This study aims to explore the interrelation between party organization and programmatic commitments and pragmatism of parties which currently constitute the overwhelming majority in the National Assembly of Armenia. Party organization, including the degrees of decentralization and institutionalization of parties, is profiled through four main criteria, namely party size, activity of members, organizational complexity, and autonomy of the party. And the programmatic commitments or pragmatism of parties is measured by comparing the theoretical and actual votes on three issues which are related to different spheres of policy, specifically, economy, environment, and education. The results mostly support the hypothesis that mass parties have well-defined ideological or programmatic commitments whereas cadre parties are pragmatic. In addition, according to the findings, none of the Armenian political parties has a high degree of decentralization. Armenian political parties share many of the problems that they face with other post-communist states. Many of these problems may require political will for genuine change. Although there are other vital conditions that should be met – such as, fair and free regular national, regional and local elections, a credible and vibrant political opposition, politically engaged and publicly energized civil society and so forth – institutionally strong, decentralized and ideologically differentiated political parties with mass as well as elite followings can be evidently essential and conducive to democratization of Armenia.