A clear trend has been formed in the domestic political discourse of Armenia in recent years. political speech is gradually simplified, often descending to the level of everyday, and sometimes crude figurative formulations.
Nikol Pashinyan’s divisions of “potato eaters”, “lavash eaters”, “black caviar eaters” are typical manifestations of this trend.
Pashinyan’s speech is an example of classic populist rhetoric. The society is divided into “common people” and “elite”, and the government tries to present itself as a natural continuation of the people, even when it has already formed as an institutional and social layer separated from society, alienated.
In the conditions of being in power for eight years, the thesis “we are the same as the people” gradually lost its credibility, especially when a significant part of socio-economic problems remain unsolved. In this situation, populism ceases to be a mobilizing tool and rather turns into a way to avoid political responsibility.
At the same time, such rhetoric is conditioned not only by the choice of the government, but also by the persistent gaps in the opposition. A citizen going to work by transport, a representative of a small business, a non-nomenclature intellectual often do not see a clear expression of their interests in the opposition field. As a result, a vacuum of inclusiveness is formed, which is filled with simple, understandable, but superficial narratives.
In these conditions, electoral behavior is often formed under the influence of primitive slogans rather than programmatic selection. Simple, emotional and “familiar” language becomes competitive with more substantive, but poorly communicated offers. Political competition is moving to a level where the quality of politics, but the effectiveness of its presentation, prevails.
In the long term, this trend contains serious risks. Public polarization deepens, the content of political discussion narrows, and the institution of responsibility weakens. The “domesticization” of politics overshadows systemic issues: the structure of the economy, issues of social justice, and the effectiveness of public administration.
Systematic solutions are needed.
The government should move to a clear agenda of accountable management, and the opposition should be able to formulate an understandable, reliable and substantial alternative for those social layers that do not feel represented today.
Only in this case will it be possible to return the political discourse to the substantive field and limit the influence of populism on public life.
Political scientist Suren Surenyants
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