Civic Activism as a Novel Component of Armenian Civil Society

Conclusion
For the past two decades, Armenian civil society was largely equated with the NGO sector.
International development organisations, public officials, scholars and the few informed
members of the general public regarded NGOs as the core element of Armenian civil society.
The NGO sector is now relatively developed and institutionalised, but it is detached from the
broader Armenian society. In that sense it remains a post-communist civil society. However, a
new actor has recently entered the civil society arena and made its presence visible. Civic
initiatives have been on the rise since circa 2007 and have already registered a number of
successes in affecting government decisions, despite the small numbers of people involved.
Youth-driven, social-media-powered, issue-specific civic activism is a new form of protest and
political participation. Armenian civil society is no longer simply a matter of NGOs, although
NGOs unquestionably remain a crucial component of civil society. The landscape of Armenian
civil society has changed.
Focusing on NGOs when discussing civil society in a post-communist context is
somewhat ironic, as the concept of civil society was popularised in the late 1980s by referring to
mass mobilisation and social movements that challenged various countries’ communist regimes.
As those movements lost momentum, NGOs came to replace them as the main ‘substance’ of
civil society. Empowered mostly through foreign development aid, rather than grassroots
involvement, NGOs perform a wide range of tasks, from humanitarian assistance to advocacy,
but fail to attract most Armenians’ trust or interest in their cause.
Armenian civil society is now unquestionably more complex than it was ten or even five
years ago. Ten years ago, civil society in Armenia largely meant NGOs. This is no longer the
case. The emergence (or re-emergence, depending on one’s historical framework) of civic
activism creates some new internal dynamics in the field of civil society, producing new patterns
of operation, networking and mobilising. Both NGOs and civic initiatives have distinct modes of
functioning, strengths and weaknesses. They can and sometimes do complement one another.
For example, NGOs offer their expertise to the activist groups, while civic initiatives can
energise NGOs and provide a much-needed link to the public. There is considerable evidence of
NGO members actively participating in civic initiatives as individuals. In general, NGOs, as
organisations, have thus far operated from behind the scenes, whether intentionally or
unintentionally. Our research shows that there is both cooperation and tension between the ‘old’
NGO sector and the ‘new’ civic activism elements of Armenian civil society.
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