Institutional Conditions of the Political Rivalry in the Post-Soviet Authoritarian RegimesMore than 25 years have passed since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Despite that, political scientists until now have used the category of ‘post-Soviet countries’, meaning that the Soviet past still determines the direction of the evolution of the political systems of the republics that won their independence in 1991 and that they still share some common features of the political design and have failed to successfully complete the transformation to democracy. The main goal of the following paper is to present institutional conditions that make post-Soviet authoritarian regimes relatively stable and limit the alternation of power. Main conclusions of the paper are the following: firstly, the power in post-Soviet authoritarian countries is held by their presidents who create informal groups of relevant politicians and businessmen that can be treated as neo-patrimonial clients. Secondly, presidential or parliamentary elections are regularly held but are just a facade that is meant to hide and legitimize authoritarian practices of these regimes. Thirdly, in such countries significant role the political life is played by the so-called ‘parties of power’ – non-ideological parties whose only goal is to support the president.
The following paper employs a normative approach and focuses on the problem of the current state of the local self-government in the South Caucasus countries: Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. Since all these countries are members of the Council of Europe, a reference point for decentralisation is the European Charter of Local Self-Government. The paper's main thesis is that despite showing some similarities, the countries have introduced different models of decentralisation that do not fully meet the Council of Europe’s criteria. Such variation is in line with the different political systems of these states and their level of democratisation. The more democratic the state is, the stronger the decentralisation it has adopted. Thus, decentralisation in Georgia follows the European model of public policy, while Azerbaijan is preserving the former Soviet model of weak self-government, with central authorities playing the leading role in public services. The current changes in Armenia’s model resemble the Georgian track of reforms. The findings of this paper may be applicable both in further theoretical research and in implementing reforms of local self-government in various post-Soviet states.
In recent years, Armenia and Georgia have carried out constitutional reforms bringing about a radical change in their respective political systems with a shift to a parliamentary model of government. To permanently democratize both countries, the role of presidents in political systems was weakened and their election was introduced indirectly. The paper discusses the main elements of presidential electoral law in both countries with their main similarities and differences. In Armenia, the president is elected by the parliament, while in Georgia by a special electoral body. The following paper argues that the constitutional reforms in both countries are intended to prevent crises of power caused by an excessive concentration of power in the hands of presidents, although the reforms do not provide a guarantee of genuine democratisation and authoritarstability of governments. The possible outcomes of the reforms can be different: in Armenia – the increase of the dependence of the president on the main political parties, in Georgia – strengthening his independence.
The article revisits the issue of the political functionality and social organization in Caucasian de facto entities. Basing on theoretical approaches regarding the phenomenon of unrecognized states, the paper examines cases of Abkhazia, South Ossetia and the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) with the focus on internal and external factors, including historical legacy, system of power, weakness of the mother state as well as support of the metropolitan state. It concludes that de facto entities demonstrate the vitality of their societies and political maturity, but their future depends mostly on international politics.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.