Armenia is navigating 1 of the most consequential periods in its post-Soviet history. The legacies of the Armenian Genocide, the Nagorno-Karabakh wars, and the 2023 exodus of Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh proceed to form how citizens view the state, its institutions, and its ability to supply safety and justice. Following the June 2026 parliamentary elections, debates over political legitimacy have become increasingly intertwined with questions of memory, identity and national belonging.
State legitimacy in Armenia is not determined by elections or constitutional authority alone. It is built – or eroded – through people’s everyday experiences with public institutions, local governance and authoritative narratives. These perceptions are further shaped by actors beyond Armenia’s borders. Diaspora communities, global organizations, abroad governments and transnational media all influence public debate and competing visions of Armenia’s future.
Journalists, civilian society representatives, displaced communities, and another local voices offer a window into how legitimacy is understood and contested in a rapidly changing political landscape. Their experiences uncover that trust in the state is continuously negotiated through lived experience, collective memory and transnational connections, making legitimacy an evolving social process alternatively than a fixed organization condition.
State–society legitimacy after the 2026 parliamentary elections in Armenia
Armenia’s parliamentary elections, held on June 7th 2026, became an crucial test of state legitimacy in a post-conflict society inactive grappling with the consequences of the 2020 Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, the 2023 forced displacement of more than 100,000 Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh, ongoing peace negotiations with Azerbaijan, and a changing geopolitical orientation toward closer cooperation with the European Union.
According to the Central Electoral Commission, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s civilian Contract organization won 49.7 per cent of the vote, retaining its parliamentary majority. At the same time, the Strong Armenia Alliance and the Armenia Alliance became the main opposition forces. respective established parties failed to pass the electoral threshold. The results reflected continued support for the government’s improvement agenda but besides revealed persistent political polarization and competing visions of Armenia’s future.
International observers from the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (OSCE/ODIHR) concluded that voters were offered a genuine political choice within a professionally administered electoral process conducted under an overall sound legal framework. At the same time, observers reported a highly polarized campaign, unequal opportunities for contestants, allegations of misuse of administrative resources, force on any public sector employees, and abroad interference during the campaign, recommending further reforms to strengthen electoral integrity.
Public debate following the elections extended beyond the conduct of voting itself. Media coverage, civilian society organizations, and political actors focused on broader questions of government performance. These included post-conflict recovery, border security, judicial reform, anti-corruption measures, economical stability, and assistance for displaced families from Nagorno-Karabakh. These issues shaped public perceptions of whether state institutions continued to meet citizens’ expectations.
Opposition parties challenged aspects of the run and electoral process through legal mechanisms, questioning the fairness of political competition while pursuing organization avenues to competition the results. Although these challenges did not alter the constitutional outcome, they reflected continuing disagreements over democratic governance alternatively than rejection of electoral institutions themselves.
Independent journalists and home election-monitoring organizations played a central function in documenting alleged irregularities, scrutinizing run financing, monitoring compliance with electoral law, and providing platforms for competing political perspectives. Organizations specified as the Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly–Vanadzor, Transparency global Anti-Corruption Center, and another civic groups continued to monitor electoral processes and advocate for greater accountability and transparency.
International actors besides influenced home perceptions of electoral legitimacy. Assessments by the OSCE/ODIHR, the European Union, and another global partners mostly recognized the elections as competitive while encouraging continued democratic reforms and stronger organization safeguards. These external evaluations became part of Armenia’s home political debate, illustrating how legitimacy is increasingly shaped through interactions between national institutions, civilian society, and global actors.
The 2026 parliamentary elections so demonstrated that electoral legitimacy in Armenia extends beyond the formal declaration of results. While constitutional procedures confirmed the legal authority of the fresh government, public assurance continued to depend on the state’s ability to address safety concerns, displacement, economical challenges, and democratic improvement in the aftermath of conflict.
Memory, statehood and legitimacy
For many Armenians, trust in the state has been shaped little by constitutional debates than by a succession of national crises. The memory of the Armenian Genocide, the 2020 war, the nine-month blockade of the Lachin Corridor, and the mass displacement from Nagorno-Karabakh in September 2023 have become benchmarks against which political leadership is judged. As Benedict Anderson observed, shared historical narratives aid specify national identity – but in Armenia those narratives are reinforced by fresh lived experience.
The humanitarian collapse of 2023 brought these questions into sharp focus. Within a week, more than 100,000 Armenians fled Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia, making it 1 of the largest and fastest population movements in the region’s modern history. Many arrived after days without reliable food, medicine or fuel. This all followed months of restrictions on the Lachin Corridor that the global Court of Justice had ordered Azerbaijan to unblock.
Public assurance in the Armenian state rapidly became linked to its applicable consequence alternatively than authoritative rhetoric. Government data showed that around 100,000 displaced people received emergency financial assistance, more than 73,000 households benefitted from housing support, and over 16,000 displaced children were enrolled in Armenian schools within weeks.
Yet humanitarian agencies warned that the emergency consequence was only the first step. As displaced families settled across Armenia, the focus shifted to affordable housing, access to employment, intellectual wellness and psychosocial support, education, and long-term integration. The UNHCR noted that the housing marketplace was already under severe strain, while sustainable accommodation, livelihoods, and intellectual wellness support remained among the most pressing unmet needs. This underscored the gap between emergency assistance and durable solutions.
These experiences reshaped public debate. For many displaced families, assurance in the state was shaped by everyday interactions with public institutions – registering for assistance, securing housing, accessing healthcare, and uncovering employment – alternatively than by authoritative statements alone. An inter-agency fast Needs Assessment conducted by the UN, IOM, UNHCR, UNICEF and the Armenian government identified access to cash assistance, housing, wellness services, livelihoods, and education among the most immediate concerns of recently displaced households. Subsequent IOM assessments besides highlighted the request to strengthen exile registration systems while expanding employment opportunities, healthcare, and intellectual wellness support as key factors for long-term integration. The crisis besides mobilized Armenian diaspora organizations, which raised millions of US dollars in humanitarian assistance and lobbied abroad governments. At the same time, global media and human rights organizations amplified scrutiny of developments on the ground.
Scholars including Laurence Broers, Nina Caspersen and Thomas de Waal have argued that in conflict-affected societies legitimacy is negotiated through lived experience as much as through formal institutions. Armenia illustrates this vividly: citizens increasingly measure the state not only by its legal authority but by its ability to supply security, respond to crises, and reconstruct assurance after war and displacement.
Contested memory in Armenia and the South Caucasus
The political meaning of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has remained profoundly contested in Armenia. The First Nagorno-Karabakh War was widely remembered by many Armenians as a conflict for self-determination and national survival, becoming closely associated with the consolidation of post-Soviet statehood. The defeat in the 2020 war, however, challenged this communicative and triggered a broader debate over the meaning of victory, failure and responsibility. Public discussions increasingly questioned not only military strategy but besides the assumptions that had shaped Armenia’s safety policy for decades.
The crisis besides exposed competing interpretations of the past and present among political actors, veterans, journalists and civilian society groups. Explanations of Armenia’s defeat in 2020 developed along 2 main lines. any analysts emphasized the broader geopolitical and military imbalance, pointing to Azerbaijan’s increased defence spending, military modernization, and strategical partnership with Turkey as decisive factors behind the outcome. Others focused on Armenia’s interior vulnerabilities, including problems in military reform, strategical planning and political decision-making. Within Armenia, debates over accountability led to calls for a deeper investigation into the causes of the defeat. A parliamentary investigative commission was established in 2022 to examine the circumstances of the 2020 war, while analysts and civilian society actors continued to debate issues ranging from military preparedness to governance failures.
These disagreements revealed that collective memory is not a fixed national communicative but an ongoing debate over what citizens anticipate from their state and political leaders.
The Armenian experience besides reflects broader regional patterns. Thomas de Waal argues in Black Garden that the conflicts of the South Caucasus are sustained by mutually exclusive historical narratives in which each society emphasizes its own experiences of victimhood while frequently overlooking those of neighbouring communities. akin dynamics can be observed in Azerbaijan, where authoritative memory powerfully emphasizes the displacement of Azerbaijanis during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War and celebrates the restoration of territorial integrity following the 2020 and 2023 military victories. In Georgia, collective memory remains shaped by conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, where questions of displacement, sovereignty and Russian intervention proceed to influence political discourse and public perceptions of the state. Across the region, historical memory so functions simultaneously as a origin of national cohesion and as a barrier to reconciliation.
Laurence Broers further argues that these memory cultures should not be understood as isolated national phenomena but as interconnected “translocal” processes in which narratives circulate across borders through media, diaspora networks, academic institutions, humanitarian organizations, and digital communication platforms.
Ultimately, memory in the South Caucasus is not only about the past. It shapes how citizens measure governments in the present – whether states can supply security, respond to crises, and offer a credible imagination for the future.
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Everyday statehood: how Armenians experience the state
In Armenia, trust in the state is increasingly shaped not only by elections, constitutional reforms, or abroad policy decisions, but besides by everyday encounters with public institutions. The concept of “everyday statehood”, associated with scholars specified as James C. Scott, highlights how citizens justice government authority through applicable experiences: accessing services, receiving protection, and seeing whether institutions respond to their needs.
Since the 2018 Velvet Revolution, public expectations of the Armenian state have changed significantly. While national safety remains a central concern, many citizens increasingly measure governance through transparency, accountability, public services and organization effectiveness. The post-revolution government placed anti-corruption reforms, judicial changes and greater public participation at the centre of its agenda, raising expectations about the state’s ability to deliver meaningful reforms. These changes have been discussed in reports by the European Commission.
Journalists and civilian society organizations have played a major function in shaping these expectations. Investigative media outlets have exposed corruption, examined military and governance failures, and brought local grievances into national debates (e.g. Hetq, CivilNet, Investigative Journalists NGO). civilian society groups have besides become crucial partners in areas specified as humanitarian assistance, legal support, democratic improvement and community development. Organizations working with displaced communities after 2023, for example, helped paper needs and advocate for better state responses. The Transparency global Anticorruption Center Armenia has maintained extended records of these changes.
The experience of Armenians displaced from Nagorno-Karabakh illustrates how legitimacy is tested through regular interactions. For these communities, the state’s credibility has been measured through applicable questions: whether assistance programmes function effectively, whether housing support reaches susceptible families, whether administrative procedures are accessible, and whether authorities supply clear information about the future.
For residents surviving close conflict zones, the reliability of local services and the government’s ability to respond during crises frequently substance as much as broader national safety policies. Interviews with residents of Tavush and Syunik show that border communities frequently view the state presence not only through military protection but besides through the availability of reliable public services and local infrastructure.
Veterans and families affected by war likewise measure the state through concrete support systems, including healthcare, pensions, employment opportunities and designation of sacrifice. Symbolic commemorations alone are frequently insufficient without corresponding organization support.
Generational differences have become increasingly visible in how Armenians specify legitimate statehood. While many older citizens, shaped by the russian collapse, the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, and decades of safety concerns, proceed to emphasize territorial protection and national security, younger Armenians have increasingly connected state legitimacy with democratic governance, civic participation, economical chance and organization accountability. Surveys of Armenian youth have highlighted strong interest in education, employment prospects, participation in decision-making, and a more accountable relation between citizens and institutions.
Social media has transformed political debate in Armenia by creating a space where citizens, journalists, activists and officials straight competition competing interpretations of government performance. Platforms specified as Facebook, YouTube and messaging applications have become crucial sources of political information and mobilization: an Internews survey found that social networks, blogs, vlogs and podcasts were among the main sources of political and social news for Armenians, while digital platforms were besides utilized by activists to organize humanitarian initiatives after the 2023 Nagorno-Karabakh displacement.
Ultimately, state legitimacy in Armenia is built not only in parliament or during elections but through thousands of everyday interactions between citizens and institutions. These experiences find whether the state is perceived as responsive, capable, and worthy of public trust.
Translocal narratives: diaspora, global institutions and political mobilization
State legitimacy in Armenia is increasingly shaped through transnational networks linking home actors with diaspora communities, global organizations, and digital platforms. These interactions have become peculiarly visible since the 2020 Second Nagorno-Karabakh War and the forced displacement of the Armenian population from Nagorno-Karabakh in September 2023.
According to the Office of the advanced Commissioner for Diaspora Affairs of the Republic of Armenia, an estimated 7 million Armenians live in more than 100 countries worldwide, compared with Armenia’s resident population of less than 3 million. Diaspora organizations have long influenced Armenian politics through humanitarian assistance, investment, lobbying and advocacy, peculiarly on issues specified as designation of the Armenian Genocide and post-conflict recovery.
The September 2023 humanitarian crisis further demonstrated the political importance of these transnational networks. Within days of Azerbaijan’s military operation, more than 100,000 cultural Armenians fled Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia, creating 1 of the largest episodes of forced displacement in the South Caucasus in decades. The consequence extended far beyond the Armenian government: the United Nations coordinated an Emergency exile consequence Plan involving 60 humanitarian partners, including 43 Armenian NGOs, while diaspora organizations in France, the United States, Lebanon and elsewhere launched parallel fundraising campaigns and humanitarian initiatives. At the same time, many diaspora organizations publically questioned the Armenian government’s handling of the crisis and peace negotiations, revealing competing understandings of state work alternatively than a single diaspora position.
International institutions have besides become crucial benchmarks against which citizens measure governance. Since the entry into force of the EU-Armenia Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement (CEPA) in 2021, cooperation has expanded in judicial reform, anti-corruption measures, public administration, and democratic governance. Following the 2022 border escalation, the European Union deployed the European Union Mission in Armenia (EUMA) to monitor the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, while the OSCE and the Council of Europe proceed supporting electoral integrity, rule-of-law reforms, and human rights initiatives. These engagements have reinforced public expectations regarding transparency, accountability and organization performance.
Digital communication has accelerated these translocal dynamics. Diaspora organizations, journalists and civilian society groups increasingly usage social media to coordinate humanitarian assistance, organize political campaigns, and influence public debate across borders. The same platforms have besides become channels for misinformation and competing narratives surrounding the conflict, illustrating how digital media simultaneously strengthens civic mobilization and intensifies political polarization.
Together, these developments propose that legitimacy in contemporary Armenia is no longer negotiated solely between citizens and state institutions. It increasingly emerges through interactions among home actors, diaspora communities, humanitarian organizations, global institutions, and transnational information networks, each shaping public expectations of governance, accountability and state responsibility.
This article was produced within the framework of the “Write East” programme of the Leibniz investigation Network Central and east Europe and during the author’s investigation stay at the Leibniz Centre for Modern Oriental Studies (ZMO), Berlin, Germany.
Anna Vardanyan is an Armenian political writer and investigator specializing in defence, global relations, and safety issues in east Europe and the Caucasus.
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