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UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository) Ethnic and civic identity: incompatible loyalties? The case of Armenians in Post- Soviet Georgia Hin, J.A. Publication date 2003 Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): Hin, J. A. (2003). Ethnic and civic identity: incompatible loyalties? The case of Armenians in Post-Soviet Georgia. Universiteit van Amsterdam/AGIDS. General rights It is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Disclaimer/Complaints regulations If you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: https://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible. UvA-DARE is a service provided by the library of the University of Amsterdam (https://dare.uva.nl) Download date:24 Sep 2021 44 IDENTIFICATION OF ARMENIANS BY OTHERS AND MOBILIZATIONN OF ARMENIANS AS AN ETHNIC GROUP Beforee turning to the ethnic identity among Armenians in Georgia, two further crucial factorss influencing these identifications among Armenians in Georgia are analyzed in this chapter.. Firstly, an analysis is made of the extent to which other actors in the field label Armenianss as belonging to the citizenry of Georgia and/or the Armenian ethnic group, therebyy emphasizing either the civic unity or the ethnic cleavage. In this research, the majorr actors are considered to be the Georgian regime (4.1) and the majority ethnic group off Georgians (4.2). Secondly, a background factor of importance to identifications among Armenianss is the extent and manner of ethnic mobilization among Armenians, which indicatee to what extent Armenians stress the ethnic cleavage in Georgian society (4.3). 4.14.1 Identification of Armenians by the regime in Georgia Onee of the major factors affecting the identification of Armenians by the regime in Georgiaa is the content of state laws that define the possibilities for Armenians to developp a civic identity. State laws in Georgia are generally liberal democratic with equall rights for all citizens regardless of their ethnic identity, although they sometimess indirectly differentiate between ethnic groups or at least are perceived as discriminatory.. For instance, the law forbidding the establishment of regional politicall parties impedes the founding of an Armenian political party in Javakheti, andd the law determining higher prices for agricultural land in mountainous regions thann in the lower valley makes it more difficult for Armenian citizens in Javakheti to acquiree land. On the other hand, there are also state laws in Georgia that support Armeniann citizens, for example in the maintenance of their cultural institutions and thee fact that Armenians may use the Russian language in parliament. Too draw an accurate conclusion on the impact of state laws on the civic identificationn of Armenians, however, research into the Georgian legal system is necessary,, which, unfortunately, is beyond the scope of this project. Yet, it is clear that largee parts of state laws are formally unquestionable and that, in fact, the informal implementationn of these laws and their perception by Armenians determine their real effectt on the development of a civic identity. State laws tend to be arbitrarily implemented,, based on networks and bribes which correlate to a large extent with ethnic identity,, as ethnicity remains an important cleavage in post-Soviet Georgia, as is proven inn the chapter on ethnic identity. It therefore seems reasonable to suppose that these formallyy unquestionable laws are often implemented in a discriminatory manner, putting citizenss with fewer contacts with the higher political levels of Georgia, such as the majorityy of the Armenians, at a disadvantage, thereby impeding their civic identification withh the Georgian state. The perception among Armenians of state laws is further analyzedd in the section on compliance with state laws, but the overall question of whether theyy think that ethnic groups have enough cultural rights in Georgia indicates that at least inn this regard a large number of Armenians are not satisfied with the current situation in Georgia.. As can be seen from Table 4.1, almost half of the Armenians in Georgia think thatt ethnic groups are not being granted sufficient cultural rights in Georgia (43%). Urban 67 7 Armenianss are more negative than rural Armenians in this respect (48% : 36%). The answerss of Armenians in Sighnaghi are especially curious. They never claim that ethnic groupss have insufficient cultural rights in Georgia but almost half of them refrained from answeringg this question, which seems to indicate that they either are not interested in the subjectt or that the issue is more sensitive in this region. Tablee 4.1: Perceptions of cultural rights among Armenians in Georgia WOULDD YOU SAY THAT ETHNIC GROUPS n = HAVEE ENOUGH POSSIBILITIES TO DEVELOP Y N Don't know THEIRR LANGUAGE AND CULTURE IN /No answer GEORGIA? ? TOTAL11 46% 43% 11% 313 Tbilisii 39% 47% 14% 76 «« Batumi 34% 52% 14% 29 || URBAN2 38% 48% 14% 105 || Sighnaghi 59% - 41% 62 << Akhaltsikhe 56% 36% 8% 62 Javakhetii 57% 37% 7% 84 RURALL 57% 36% 7% 208 Besidess state laws, the prevailing formal and informal political structures also effectt civic identification among Armenians, as they determine the political opportunity structuree in Georgia, in other words, the extent to which it is possible for Armenians to mobilizee themselves politically. The formal access of citizens in Georgia to the political structuree of the state has not been very extensive as a result of the high degree of centralizationn of power. Although the Georgian presidential-parliamentary democracy providess for the direct election of the central government,3 the president nevertheless maintainss a high level of control over various parts of the state as a result of his right to appointt the heads of districts and regions. Moreover, the electoral rules do not make parliamentt easily accessible for Armenians - assuming that Armenians would like to be representedd by members of the Armenian ethnic group, which is to be expected as the ethnicc cleavage is considerable (see analysis in Chapter Five) - and nepotism dominates alll kinds of state institutions (as stated in Chapter Three). Only Armenians making up a largee part of the population in a district are able to elect a local candidate of their own ethnicityy through the majority system - through which 85 of the 235 seats are selected. Withinn the proportional representation system - through which the remaining 150 seats aree divided - Armenians can only vote for political parties and not for individual Armeniann candidates on party lists. They thus depend on party committees for the '' In all tables, the total of the five regions is calculated using the weighting factor 'total' (see Section 2.6 on researchh methods). 22 In all tables, the total of urban areas is calculated using the weighting factor 'urban' and the total of rural areass is calculated using the weighting factor 'rural' {see Section 2.6 on research methods). 33 Since 1998 local governments have been directly elected as well, but that was introduced after the survey wass conducted. 68 8 numberr and sequence of Armenian candidates on the election list, and, logically, these partyy committees consist predominantly of Georgian members, since Georgians are the majorityy ethnic group in Georgia. Also, the establishment of an Armenian political party -- which would be allowed by the Constitution - would hardly improve the chances of Armenianss being elected to parliament because the electoral threshold requires that a partyy gain at least five percent of the votes in order to be able to enter the Georgian parliament,, while Armenians nowadays barely make up such a proportion in the populationn of Georgia. In the last Soviet census in 1989 Armenians still comprised only eightt percent of the population in Georgia, but since that time many have left the country (Thee National Composition of Georgia 1991). It thus seems reasonable to conclude that, comparedd to Georgians, the formal political structure in Georgia is not equally accessible forr Armenians. This conclusion is supported by the Freedom House analysis of political rightsrights and civil liberties in Georgia, which also concluded that during 1999-2000 Georgia couldd only be regarded as a partly free state. Naturally, this impedes the civic identificationidentification of Armenians with the Georgian state. Unlikee the formal political structures, which were renewed with the declaration of ann independent democratic Georgian state, the informal political structures in Georgia havee largely been left unchanged since Soviet times and still include the more persistent politicall networks, political abilities and political perceptions. As outlined in Chapter Three,, during Soviet times the Nomenklatura system privileged the Georgian titular groupp in the political structures of Georgia. As a result, in Georgia nowadays Georgians havee the political skills and experience.