Armenia

Research and Diaspora Networks

Milada Kasarjyan and colleagues discovered a positive correlation between resident Armenian farmers' social capital, understood as social networks integration, and both their access to credits and their repayment performance. Donald and Lorna Miller found that the effects of the war against Azerbaijan as well as the mass exodus of nearly one-third of Armenia's population threaten social networks in the South-Caucasian republic. Pierre Verluise and Levon Chorbajian added the earthquake of 1988 to the list of reasons for the markedly “fractured” nature of social networks in Armenia, which heavily contradicts its tradition of collectivism and social interdependence that prevailed at least until the country claimed independence in 1991, an act that J. L. Johnson assumes to have ultimately made Armenia's community system collapse. Following independence, decentralization processes amplified by USAID, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and World Bank programs resulted in the establishment of two parallel systems of governance, consisting of formal government structures and strengthened clientelistic networks, with smooth transitions in between.

In studying the functions of transnational personal networks of Armenians living in Athens and Istanbul, Ulf Björklund ends up with what he deems the paradox of transnational networks facilitating the existence of transnational nations. Janine Dahinden also compared two cases of Armenian social networks and found that integration in diaspora networks is much more relevant to Armenians living in Russia than to those living in Switzerland. Radka Klavnova focuses on the role social networks play in the migration of Armenian asylum seekers to the Czech Republic: during the phase of decision making about migration, the migrants perceived weak ties as the most important source of information, whereas during the arrival and settlement phase, the strong ties both enabled their integration into the diaspora networks and also prevented their social mobility [Page 57]in the Czech society in the later phases of their settlement. This corresponds to the results of a social network analysis performed by Anny Bakalian in the context of Armenian Americans: the longer the generational presence in the United States, the less likely the personal network of an individual of Armenian descent will be exclusively Armenian, which allows a larger amount of social mobility.

There appears to be far more knowledge on Armenian diaspora networks than on social networks inside Armenia. Against the background of the tremendous influence exerted by remittances between the Armenian diaspora and the homeland on Armenia's transfer economy, the gap of knowledge on the impact of these highly selective, transnational network relations on national social networks markedly stands out.

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