Is Armenia Really Post-Ideological?

On the first of May, as Armenians gathered in the hundreds of thousands in town squares across the country, Nikol Pashinyan stood on the National Assembly floor. During a question period preceding a vote on his candidacy for the Prime Minister’s office, he responded to an accusation by a Republican Party MP that his ‘liberal ideology’ clashed with Armenia’s conservative values. Pashinyan argued that the liberal-conservative paradigm was conceptually meaningless, insisting that Armenia exist in a post-ideological realm.

What it means to be ‘post-ideological’ in Armenia remains unclear. If Armenia’s current political culture serves as any indication, it is perhaps more appropriate to look at the country as ‘pre-ideological’ rather than the latter. Though political parties have long espoused ideologies, experience suggests that personality politics and pragmatism traditionally dominate the Armenian political spectrum rather than dogmatism.