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Transforming Governance in Armenia: From Soviet Legacy to Strategic Reform

Margaryan, Marina · 2025

Margaryan analyses the evolution of institutional reform in Armenia's public administration since independence, dividing it into four stages: initial institutional creation (1991–1999), formalization and adoption of Western governance models (2000–2008), European integration and administrative modernization (2009–2017), and the political transformation with renewed reform since 2018. She reads these as the interaction of historical legacy, external influence and domestic aspirations toward modernization, assessing institutional inertia, the limited localization of imported models, and political resistance. She closes by measuring the reforms against Armenia's Public Administration Reform Strategy to 2030 and arguing for a shift from imitative reform to durable institutional transformation.

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Published in
Journal of Political Science: Bulletin of Yerevan University, Vol. 4, No. 1(10), pp. 142–158; DOI 10.46991/JOPS/2025.4.10.142
Year
2025
Language
English
DOI
10.46991/JOPS/2025.4.10.142

Citation

Margaryan, Marina 2025. Transforming Governance in Armenia: From Soviet Legacy to Strategic Reform. Journal of Political Science: Bulletin of Yerevan University, Vol. 4, No. 1(10), pp. 142–158; DOI 10.46991/JOPS/2025.4.10.142. https://doi.org/10.46991/JOPS/2025.4.10.142

What this offers a reader

For students

How the Armenian state actually works, and why reform keeps stalling.

For academics

Institutional political science from YSU; useful for anyone studying post-Soviet state capacity.

For the community

If we want a state that functions, this is the honest diagnosis of where it does not.

For a general reader

Why reforming the Armenian state has been so hard since 1991.

Topics

Armenian political sciencepost-Soviet governanceinstitutional reformpath dependencypublic administrationRepublic of Armenia

Citation checked against the publisher's record on .