2 research outputs found
Self-determined citizens? New forms of civic activism and citizenship in Armenia
This article examines the recent emergence and growth of grassroots social movements in Armenia which are locally known as âcivic initiativesâ. It considers what their emergence tells us about the development of civil society and the changing understandings and practices of citizenship in Armenia in the post-Soviet period. It analyses why civic initiatives explicitly reject and distance themselves from formal, professionalised NGOs and what new models of civic activism and citizenship they have introduced. It argues that civic initiatives embrace a more political understanding of civil society than that which was introduced by Western donors in the 1990s