Scientific conference on developments in the post-Soviet period held at New Delhi

03 November, 2016

On November 2, the Centre for Russian and Central Asian Studies, School of International Studies of New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University organized an international scientific conference titled ''Twenty Years of Post-Soviet Experience: Perspectives on Nation Building and Democratization in Eurasia''.

The rector of the University, chairperson of the of the Centre for Russian and Central Asian Studies, lecturers, representatives of the Indian government, regional experts and diplomats attended and addressed the inaugural session of the conference.

Ambassador of the Republic of Armenia A.Martirosyan introduced his views and accepted the request of the University leadership to deliver a Special Lecture on post-Soviet Armenia's political and socio-economic development by the end of the year.

I would like to thank the Center for Russian and Central Asian Studies of the School of International Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University for inviting me and extending me the opportunity to address those present here today.

Throughout the past months, the states comprising the FSU have been celebrating the 25^th anniversary of their independence. Given politicians’ and diplomats’ propensity towards downplaying shortcomings and overemphasizing the scope of gains, this historic date in each country’s history often becomes a time of verbose grandiloquence. Being a member of the 1^stNational Parliament, which introduced and proclaimed the Declaration of Independence of the Republic of Armenia, I personally view this milestone as a good occasion for both retrospective analysis and exploration of strategies to outline future policies aimed at strengthening our young statehoods. Accordingly, I view this debate as an opportunity to compliment my country`s position on the topic of the conference with my own foresight, and interpret it more freely than I otherwise could. Let me assure you that I’ll do my best to be objective and impartial in my all assessments.

Today I will preface my presentation and analysis of developments in Armenia since the downfall of the Soviet Union, scheduled on November 21^st, with some notional thoughts for context.

The dynamic articulated in 1860 by one of the founders of unified Italy, Massimo d’Azeglio when he stated that “Italy has been made; now it remains to make Italians,” struck me as particularly fitting for our discussion. Accounting for a predilection for the dramatic, stemming from Signore d’Azeglio’s prolific career as a painter and novelist, his remarks manifest that even Italians, despite their millennia of celebrated history, were still in the process of being molded, in the end of the 19th century. Without specifying any in particular, Signore d’Azeglio’s non-formal allusion to nation-building hits the nail on the head in describing many countries around the world today, including some of the states of the Former Soviet Union.

The violent forms that nation building has taken thus far in the 21st century are ample proof that it is an urgent matter that transcends academic interest alone. What defines the path of nation building? How does it correlate with the process of state building? Does their implementation require different or identical tools and resources? Both scholars and practitioners of international relations take a lively interest in those issues, and I hope that the outcomes of this conference will contribute to a better understanding of on-going developments in the countries constituting the FSU.

Nation building, according to Alberto Alesina from Harvard University and Bryony Reich from UCL, “is a process, which leads to the formation of countries in which the citizens feel a sufficient amount of commonality of interests, goals and preferences so that they do not wish to separate from each other.” This homogeneity can be achieved either through education, teaching of a common language, building of infrastructure for easier travel and communication, and promotion of common views and values, or through brute force, prohibitions and restrictions on local cultures, traditions and faiths, and in extreme cases, genocidal acts. In the meantime, the last two centuries have illustrated how various imperial powers chose to implement “Divide and rule” policies and increase heterogeneity in local populations, in order to control a multi-national state. Hence, depending on the society’s initial conditions and the preferences of the political elite, nation-building can lead to either democratization or dictatorship. Democracies and dictatorships in turn, take into account different incentives when it comes to choosing degrees and strategies of homogenization or heterogenization.

According to Francis Fukuyama, a prominent American scholar and the former head of policy planning at the US state department, what Americans refer to as nation building is often properly identified as state building - that is, creating new institutions and improving existing ones. Nobel Prize winner, and co-founder of New Institutional Economics, Douglas North defines institutions as "humanly devised constraints that structure political, economic and social interactions." Constraints, according to professor North, are devised as formal rules like constitutions, laws and by laws, and informal rules like beliefs, customs, traditions and codes of conduct, which combined together contribute to the maintenance and perpetuation of order within a society and market, in particular.

Based on the abovementioned criteria, I believe that the Republic of Armenia, a body of people united by common descent, a distinct religion, a unique language, an ancient culture, and inhabiting a particular territory, is today engaged in and challenged by state building, rather than nation building. Our experience since 1991 has taught us that designing new formal institutions through the adoption of and amendments to constitutions and laws intended to support sustainable economic growth and liberal democracy is much easier than enforcing them in everyday life, while discarding or restricting informal institutions that handicap our ability to build a modern and competitive state is an easier-said-than-done endeavor. It is obvious that informal institutions are highly conservative, that is, resistant to change.

As a result, some of our beliefs, habits, and other components of the Soviet socio-cultural legacy have been harmful for state building, and in particular for the establishment of rule of law. Regrettably, the degree to which such a legacy can be modified or transformed for the better through deliberate actions and modifications is still not fully understood.

As a diplomat, I would like to touch upon the relationship between national identity and a nation's foreign policy. We Armenians witness first-hand how the former affects and sometimes dictates the latter. Moreover, we can observe how various contemporary states around the globe define foreign and domestic policies on the basis of national identity, while contradicting national interests. I`d rather refrain from naming specific states, but would suggest you to look at the global political map and analyze it for yourself in this context.

In conclusion, let me thank you for your attention and express my hope that in a coming days we’ll have the opportunity for a comprehensive discussion concerning Armenia, in the context of the theme of this conference.

Armen Martirosyan

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