31/4 Charents St, Yerevan 0025
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Transformations

Within this theme, we study the transformation, building and consolidation of democratic institutions in Armenia and the South Caucasus. The main goal of activities within this theme is to encourage a rational discourse about existing problems and trends in nation-building, based on empirical facts and modern political theory, and to promote technologically sound solutions relying on international experience in the area.

The theme includes

  • The Annual Caucasus Conference, an international event that brings together experts from the South Caucasus (Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia), Russia (including the Northern Caucasus), Turkey, the U.S. and the E.U. to assess and discuss the situation with governance, transition and development in the region. The Caucasus Conference is the only regular debate format in Armenia that offers a comparative aspect of the region, looks at both domestic and external factors, and gauges development trends and challenges per country.
  • The Caucasus Yearbook, a volume in Russian based on presentations made at the Caucasus Conference; it contains the results of research on nation-building, democratization, development, regional and European integration of the Caucasus. The papers look at each country of the South Caucasus and at its de-facto states, at the Northern Caucasus as a whole, and at the role of external players in the region (the West, Russia and Turkey).
  • Identities, Ideologies and Institutions. A Decade of Insight into the Caucasus: 2001-2011. A collection of papers in English, written for CI between 2002 and 2011 on a variety of topics, ranging from religion and oil to color revolutions. The papers were chosen based on their insight, original angle and the fact that they remained topical, as the ideas and predictions have remained valid to this day even for papers written in the early 2000s.
  • Heinrich Böll Foundation Public Debates in Yerevan launched in October 2012 in cooperation with the Heinrich Boell Foundation. The topics of the debates are pressing policy issues. Each round of the debates has several speakers with contrasting opinions, representing government, civil society and academia. and result in an intense pluralistic discussion.
  • Elites and Informalities in Armenia: a pilot study launched in September 2012 in cooperation with the ASCN. Informality is little understood in the South Caucasus but highly important in political and economic life; the new project is expected to break the ground.

The Nations in Transit report on Armenia; for five consecutive years, it has been produced by CI director Alexander Iskandaryan with the help of CI researcher Hrant Mikaelyan.