Middle East

Three weeks ago, the western region of the Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU) announced that it will be closing its AGBU Vatche and Tamar Manoukian High School in Pasadena, California. A flurry of protests and protestations flooded the public Armenian-American square, unanimously condemning the decision and imploring AGBU to reconsider. Unfortunately, many issues central to the Diaspora’s existence in the West that were inherent to the decision to close the school and were unexpectedly thrust into the limelight went largely ignored....

Abstract The current post-Soviet bureaucracy in South Caucasian republics, and notably in ethnically diverse Azerbaijan and Georgia, has yet been unable to link ethnicity, territory, and political administration in the process of state-building and democratic development. Bureaucratic evolution from communism to liberalism has simply contributed to the establishment of a handy “electoral democracy” and lucrative economic liberalism for the elites. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, particularistic identities, reinforced differences, and fragmentation of societies have been the dominant characteristics of the South Caucasian republics of Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan (or Trans-Caucasus)....