Civic Activism as a Novel Component of Armenian Civil Society

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court of appeal. In April 2015, the court dismissed the appeal (“TIAC’s Appeal on Afrikyan Case Was Dismissed” 2016). • Current status of the initiative The initiative has ceased and is classified as a failure. No activities could be detected in a media search. Social media is also silent on the matter. • Leaders Bagiyan (2015) describes this initiative as rather disorganised, although there was a small core group of activists. Our study depicts a similar picture. There seems to be a loosely organised core of some 3-4 activists who led the initiative. Some of our interviewees described the organisation as rather chaotic, attributing this to the fact that mostly ‘arts’ people were involved and that they seemed to have a specific, ‘artsy’ type of spontaneity, rather than structure and order. The activists also regretted their inability to continuously occupy the site, which might have helped save it. • Gender Dimension The issue is not connected to gender. Both women and men were actively involved in the case, including a female activist in the small core of leaders. Activists recall that a number of women were involved, perhaps even slightly outnumbering the men. • Internet and Social Media Three Facebook units connected to the Afrikyan case were identified: a closed group, an open group and a page. The Architects for Afrikyan closed group has 36 members; an open group with an identical name has 36 members; it appears that the public group has never been active. The Facebook page has 1,958 likes and was last updated on 10 October 2015. • Scope, spread, duration The initiative was the smallest in scope of the five cases under study. Judging by social media and the accounts of rally participants, it largely failed to attract public attention, with the exception of a concert by a famous piano player. It was also very limited in scope, which is partially explained by the fact that it was targeted at a particular site in Yerevan, although the activists did make an effort to frame it as a larger issue of preserving Yerevan’s “historic face” and relating the fate of the Afrikyan building to other similar old buildings that have disappeared. Naturally, it did not spread beyond the capital. • NGOs This case is a good example of the fluidity and uncertainty of something as seemingly simple as NGO involvement in a civic campaign. NGOs were clearly involved: the Urban Lab, the TIAC and the Helsinki Committee of Armenia provided support and attempted judicial action to defend the building. There were several activists who were also NGO members and even NGO leaders. 47
However Bagiyan (2015) reports that there was confusion among the participants regarding the capacity in which they participated. NGO member participants made contradicting statements: while one member stated that s/he participated as an individual, another member of the same NGO stated that this was an issue that their organisation had a stake in; hence, such participation represented NGO involvement. Apart from participating in protests, NGOs had institutional involvement in the case: three organisations filed lawsuits against Yerevan Municipality; several cultural NGOs were involved in designing press releases and organising various cultural events. Interestingly, this formal participation went unnoticed by some activists, who claimed no NGO involvement in the case (Bagiyan 2015). 5.1.5. Electric Yerevan • Background: What is the issue? The electricity supply in Armenia is exclusively provided by the Electric Networks of Armenia (ENA). Since 2006, the company has been owned by a Russian energy holding company “Inter RAO UES”. It has thrice increased electricity prices: in 2009, 2013 and 2014. As a result, in 2015, people were paying nearly twice as much for electricity as they had been paying in 2008: approximately eight US cents per kWh. According to data released by an Armenian NGO, this was the highest price among all post-soviet republics, except Lithuania and Latvia (Epress News 2015). In May 2015, ENA applied to Armenia’s Public Services Regulatory Commission to request a further increase in electricity prices, citing low profits and accumulated debts over the past few years. The Commission did not approve the requested increase of 41% (17 AMD, approximately 4 US cents), but it did approve a more modest price increase of 17% (7 AMD, approximately 1.5 US cents) on June 17, 2015. This increase is what sparked the protests, now commonly referred to as Electric Yerevan. However, that name is somewhat misleading: the protests were not confined to Yerevan but quickly spread beyond the capital. • Chronology and the main developments According to some news sources (Baitarian 2015), the first protest was staged by a group of youth activists affiliated with the ARF-Dashnaktsutyun political party. On the same day as the decision to raise prices (June 17), activists gathered in front of the Public Services Regulatory Commission’s office. As a result of clashes with the police, several activists were arrested and released hours later. This episode is not mentioned in any major subsequent news story on how the protests unfolded. On June 19, a larger crowd, describing themselves as ‘concerned citizens’ not affiliated with any political party, gathered at the Liberty Square in the centre of the city. They protested the price increase and announced that the government had three days to meet their demands. The three days passed, and the demands were not met, so the activists moved on to the next stage of the plan. On the evening of 22 June, they marched to Baghramyan Avenue: one of the central streets housing the Presidential Palace, the National Assembly (the Parliament), the Constitutional Court and a number of embassies. News reports (Azatutyun June 23, 2015; 48
Page 1 and 2: Civic Activism as a Novel Component
Page 3 and 4: The present study was conducted wit
Page 5 and 6: 5.1. Case Studies .................
Page 7 and 8: List of Abbreviations ARMedia CB CS
Page 9 and 10: A note of caution is in order here.
Page 11 and 12: demonstrated that voluntary associa
Page 13 and 14: volunteering by Swedish citizens, T
Page 15 and 16: communication tools lies mainly in
Page 17 and 18: 2.1. The NGO Sector The NGO sector
Page 19 and 20: mentioning a few key points here to
Page 21 and 22: 3.2. Case Studies To move from the
Page 23 and 24: Focus groups and interviews were vo
Page 25 and 26: explore the overall political cultu
Page 27 and 28: (signing a petition, joining in boy
Page 29 and 30: activists are being targeted throug
Page 31 and 32: eport higher levels of trust in onl
Page 33 and 34: while actual and potential activist
Page 35 and 36: Some segments of society perceive t
Page 37 and 38: efforts to save the waterfall mean
Page 39 and 40: In March 2010, Mariam Sukhudyan was
Page 41 and 42: like a “spontaneous volcano” th
Page 43 and 44: concerning the constitutionality of
Page 45 and 46: in the North). The Twitter account
Page 47: On 13 June 2014, activists started
Page 51 and 52: weddings took place on Baghramyan,
Page 53 and 54: Voch Talanin (No to Plunder) Facebo
Page 55 and 56: VI. Civic Initiatives and NGOs Alth
Page 57 and 58: Table 3. NGO involvement in civic a
Page 59 and 60: to seek out those organisations tha
Page 61 and 62: increase of feeling of loneliness.
Page 63 and 64: people, change their thinking, risk
Page 65 and 66: street, activism can take different
Page 67 and 68: public activism (because, in a true
Page 69 and 70: lack of political will on the part
Page 71 and 72: “As a non-participant to any prot
Page 73 and 74: 8.2. Civic Initiatives in Armenia T
Page 75 and 76: 8.2.2. Why Do Civic Initiatives Fai
Page 77 and 78: IX. Perceptions 9.1. Activist Perce
Page 79 and 80: At times, the public regards activi
Page 81 and 82: and not just the public at large, h
Page 83 and 84: The mother of another activist orig
Page 85 and 86: easons. There are some groups of pe
Page 87 and 88: X. Other Issues -- In Armenia, acti
Page 89 and 90: the society to become an equal part
Page 91 and 92: Conclusion For the past two decades
Page 93 and 94: is not the point we are attempting
Page 95 and 96: References Aarhus Convention Compli
Page 97 and 98: Flanagan, Constance A. 2004. “Vol
Page 99 and 100:
McAdam, Doug, John D. McCarthy, and
Page 101 and 102:
Tilly, Charles, and Sidney Tarrow.
Page 103 and 104:
Appendix 2 Focus Group Guide for NG
Page 105 and 106:
Appendix 4 Interview Guide for Civi
Page 107 and 108:
Appendix 6 Qualitative Data Indexin
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Civic Activism as a Novel Component of Armenian Civil Society

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