Vahram Ter-Matevosyan

American University of Armenia · College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Located at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, Armenia and Turkey are two neighboring countries that share a 311 km of land border. Official relations between them, however, remain antagonistic as they never established diplomatic relations, and the land border remains closed. All the past efforts to normalize relations and eradicate the standoff ha...

Since April 2018, Armenia has gone through a series of dramatic events. Convinced of its ‘democratic invincibility,’ the regime that emerged after ‘the Velvet Revolution’ espoused the view that Armenia’s new, democratic facade must secure increased support from Brussels and Washington and continued loyalty from its security provider – the Kremlin....

Kemalizm ve Kemalizmin ideolojik temelleri, yaygın olarak Batı merkezli yorumların çizdikleri kısıtlı çerçeveler eşliğinde ele alındı.Komünizm Gözünden Kemalizm - Türkiye’nin Dönüşümüne Sovyet Yaklaşımları, aksi bir yönde ilerleyerek Kemalizmin biçimlenişi ve dönüşümünü, yaygınlaşması ve egemen hale gelişini, Sovyetler Birliği’ndeki tartışmaları od...

The institutional development of many post-Communist countries remains a daunting task. Since the early 1990s, some of them have managed to achieve visible results in eradicating corruption and enhancing the effectiveness and accountability of public institutions, while others still struggle with several systemic problems. Since regaining its indep...

In the 1920s and 1930s, the world closely observed the evolution of the Kemalist system of ideological and political principles. In recent years, there has been a surge in scholarly interest towards the transnational history of Kemalism. Research on Soviet, Middle Eastern, and European perspectives has enriched the study of Kemalism and expanded it...

Policy practitioners and scholars have long believed that the South Caucasus, as a distinct region, will have no future as long as its regional conflicts remain unresolved, borders are disputed or sealed, and economic cooperation is minimal. However, the missing component in such analyses is how the three countries of the region-Armenia, Azerbaijan...

Armenia is one of the 44 landlocked countries in the world. It is also among those landlocked nation states that face peculiar geopolitical challenges. Armenia has no diplomatic relations with two of its neighbors, which renders 80% of its land borders closed. The geography and regional political conjuncture have unambiguously shaped the priorities...

The Republic of Turkey of the 1920s and 1930s was a complex place to live. Kemalism came to nurture and embrace a new citizen who had no other choice but that of being a Turk as stipulated by the 1924 constitution. It was particularly challenging for Christian minorities, or what was left of them, because of ultra-nationalism and the highly ideolog...

The Nagorno Karabakh conflict remains a perplexing challenge for the regional security of the South Caucasus. In spite of decades of negotiations under the auspices of the OSCE Minsk Group, the final resolution of the conflict remains a distant goal. Against this background, since 2012 several US and Australian states as well as the Basque Parliame...

This book examines the Kemalist ideology of Turkey from two perspectives. It discusses major problems in the existing interpretations of the topic and how the incorporation of Soviet perspectives enriches the historiography and our understanding of that ideology. To address these questions, the book looks into the origins, evolution, and transforma...

After discussing major turning points in the evolution and transformation of Kemalism between the 1920s and 1970s and before shifting to Soviet perceptions, it is useful to establish existing interpretations of Kemalism and revisit certain established patterns. Since its inception, Kemalism produced divergent interpretations and schisms over its me...

This chapter examines turning points in the first two decades of the Republic from its foundation until the death of Kemal Atatürk in 1938. It focuses on major phases of ideological consolidation and delineates their distinctive features. Exploring ideological layers of the RPP congresses in the 1920s and 1930s, it offers a comparative analysis of...

The first successful military coup d’état in Turkey in 1960 made possible the emergence of fundamentally new trends in the political culture. It prepared a ground for new approaches and radical solutions to old political challenges that had existed long before the intervention.

This chapter examines the policies that the Kemalist elite and intellectuals undertook to support and with which they disseminated Kemalism in the first three decades of its rule. Kemalists were quick to recognize that the adoption of party principles was not enough to earn popular support.

While the literature on Kemal Atatürk is considerable, discussion of his revolutionary reforms and policies has been marked by a lack of consensus on relevant terminology.

The period between 1938 and 1960 was critical for Kemalism and its supporters. WWII and post-war geopolitical challenges on the one hand and rising domestic problems on the other were significant factors for Kemalism as its supporters pushed it onto a course of constant adjustments. Kemalist principles and visions that were at the core of the polic...

Both founded in the wake of World War I, Turkey and the Soviet Union followed revolutionary modernizing pathways. After the consolidation of power, ruling regimes in both countries self-consciously set out to build something new and different, “national” in one case and “socialist” in the other.

This chapter discusses major changes that occurred in Soviet interpretations of Kemalism from the end of the 1920s to the 1970s. During this relatively long period, Soviet perspectives of domestic ideological transformations in Turkey made a few radical turns, which reflected new complexities in bilateral relations and the polarizing nature of the...

During and after the collapse of the Soviet Union, several violent conflicts erupted in different parts of its (former) territory. The South Caucasus region has experienced three ethnically rooted violent conflicts, yet other ethnic disputes in the same region remained dormant. Despite an extensive literature on the South Caucasus conflicts, resear...

In spite of all previous efforts, the land border between Armenia and Turkey remains closed. Being one of the last reminders of the Cold War era, it significantly hinders the development of Armenia and eastern regions of Turkey. However, a closed border is more than a physical obstacle, as it also shapes the worldview and perceptions of the respect...

This article examines a series of political changes that recently affected the levels of religiosity in Azerbaijan. Since 2009 the Azerbaijani leadership has adopted a set of laws and policy regulations designed to restrain Islamism and Islamic activism. In spite of heavy-handed state control and legal restrictions, there has been a visible increas...

On 3 September 2013, the president of Armenia shifted the long-praised process of initialing political association and economic integration with the European Union and announced Armenia’s decision to join the Russia-led Customs Union and participate in the processes of formation of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). Practitioners and observers int...

For centuries, the South Caucasus was a region where external powers exercised strong influence. While independence has changed the situation and autonomous states evolved after the breakdown of the Soviet Union, both dependencies from - and necessary partner- ships with - powerful neighbours s are still the reality in Georgia and Armenia and Azerb...

Being founded in the wake of the First World War, both Turkey and the Soviet Union followed revolutionary modernizing pathways. At the outset, one could trace many similar patterns in their radical modernization paradigms; however, their development models as well as political and social orders were radically distinct, which became more obvious wit...

The article examines and compares the institutional structures of Armenian diasporas of Russia and Lebanon with the intention of identifying factors that could explain the diverging outcomes in institution building and identity preservation in these communities. The study also aims to contribute to the current understanding of how different diaspor...

Many facets of ideological transformation in Turkey between the 1910s and 1930s have been extensively discussed but many more still remain to be studied and contextualised. One of these aspects concerns the existing disagreement in the scholarship over Turkey’s experience with another manifestation of totalitarianism, and particularly with fascism....

Although scholars have examined different aspects of bilateral relations between Turkey and the Soviet Union, many aspects of the relationship remain to be studied and contextualized. This article examines how the Kemalist transformation in Turkey and particularly the ideology of Kemalism were seen and interpreted by Soviet actors between the 1920s...

The aim of this paper is to explore the dynamics of Turkish-Georgian relations with a particular emphasis on the post-United National Movement era. The paper discusses the determinants which shape and define the essence of the deepening of relations between Turkey and Georgia. The paper also looks upon the manifestations of Turkish “soft power” pol...

A b k h a z i a analytical No. 67–68 23 December 2014 ■ ■ (Non) "Russian World", (Non) Soft Power: Putin's Serpentine Policy in the South Caucasus 2 By Andrey Makarychev, Tartu, and Alexandra Yatsyk, Kazan ■ ■ The Ukraine Crisis: Repercussions on Georgia 6 By Kornely Kakachia, Tbilisi ■ ■ The Ukrainian Crisis and Implications for Azerbaijan 11 By A...

Between 2005 and 2007, Georgia and Azerbaijan developed their respective National Security Concepts. The article comparatively examines the existing policy patterns of territorial reintegration in these two countries and focuses on how that question is reflected in these important political documents. Comparative study of National Security Concepts...

The article deals with the ideological construction of the founding years of Republic of Turkey with a particular attention to the Soviet historiography on the Kemalist movement. Observation of the Soviet historiography reveals some important aspects of the Soviet treatment of political and social transformations that took place in Turkey in the 19...

This article aims to explore one of the critical and relatively understudied dimensions of Turkish politics: the complex characteristics of interactions between the Armenian community (mainly Gregorian Orthodox Christians) and the incumbent government of the Justice and Development Party. Two interrelated questions are raised below: Why did the rel...

ՀՀ տեղեկատվական անվտանգության խնդիրների համատեքստում համալիր վերլուծվում են ադրբեջանական հակահայկական ինֆոքաղաքականության համակարգը և իրականացման մեթոդաբանությունը, դիտարկվում են այն տեխնոլոգիաները, որոնք կիրառվում են ադրբեջանական մեդիատարածքում «թշնամի հայի» կերպարի ձևավորման նպատակով, քննարկվում են Ադրբեջանի «էլեկտրոնային-հաքերային» հարձակումների...

Contrary to the Kemalists' aspirations, religion preserved its role in Turkish society. Furthermore, because of unbalanced and far from clearly defined religious policies, Islam reemerged in Turkish politics. During the last three decades of the 20th century the continous presence and frequent outlawing of pro-Islamic political parties such as the...