IPSC Newsletter, October 2013

MONTHLY NEWSLETTER

IPSC — INSTITUTE FOR POLITICAL AND SOCIOLOGICAL CONSULTING

Hovhannes J. GrigoryanIPSC CEOCONTENTS

IPSC in figures

Government Satisfaction Index

IPSC Anniversary

Hungarian guests in IPSC

Professor Tilman Allert’s

public lecture and

interview

October 2013 is an exceptionally important month for IPSC. This is the month when we celebrated our 7th anniversary – 7 years of sustainable growth and of significant achievements. With yearly increas-ing number of personnel and reaching to the limit

of 4 complete projects per month, we are now one of the most prominent companies in the field of sociological consulting in the region. IPSC has no restrictions; we cooperate with local and international organizations, governmental institutions, commercial enterprises and private companies. Notably during the last quarter we conducted researches in the fields of banking, employment studies, community needs assessment, governmental sector, foreign relations and telecommunications. Our projects intersect in the crossroad of academic and commercial fields. We in IPSC consider this as a great opportunity; therefore organization of public lectures, conferences, workshops and awards is extremely important for us. We are also open for academic researchers or scholars, since we have accumulated rich databases to share with them for their scientific research purposes. We are proud that our consulting provides a framework for decision makers in various fields to come up with important strategy for their com-panies in particular and public in general. We are also proud that during those 7 years we won the trust of our respondents who are now sure – “every opinion makes a difference”.

№ 1OCTOBER 2013

7 YEARS IN FIGURES

2006I P S C F O U N D A T I O N D A T E

160 NUMBER OF SURVEYS

222,035 R E S P O N D E N T S

48 CITIES VISITED

600 V I L L A G E S C O V E R E D

6 ,000PA G E S O F R E P O RT S

121PEOPLE WORKING FOR IPSC

8AWARDS AND SCHOLARSHIPS

Q U E S T I O N S A S K E D

600 PEOPLE ENROLLED

3,000

On October the 1st IPSC – Institute for Political and Sociological Consulting

invited all its employees and friends to cel-ebrate its 7th anniversary. All departments of the company were presented – the quantitative and qualitative surveys, tele-phone interviews, quality control depart-ments, as well as the main staff members. Close friends of IPSC were also taking part in the event. During the event IPSC CEO Hovhannes Grigoryan awarded silver and gold IPSC medals to the company's employees, who had correspondingly worked for the company for 3 and 5 years.

IPSC 7TH ANNIVERSARY

Samvel ManukyanSenior Research Analyst

Samvel Manuky-an has graduated both the Depart-ment of Technical Translation and Informatics and the Department of Control Systems both at Yerevan Polytechnic Institute. In year 2010 Samvel became PhD in Sociology. Prior to IPSC Samvel has worked as Republic of Armenia Health System Performance Assessment, Monitor-ing and Evaluation Expert in Govern-ment Reform Programs of RoA, par-ticularly with Ministry of Healthcare of RoA, Ministry of Labor and So-cial Affairs, as well as international organizations: World Bank, UNDP, OXFAM, IFES and USAID funded programs. Samvel joined IPSC 2011 as a Senior Research Analyst. He is responsible for the preparation of analytical schemes, tools and data analysis.

MIGRATION IN ARMENIA

In October IPSC Research Analyst Samvel Manuky-

an introduced “The factors of Migration Management” presentation based on the “Quality of Life Index” survey on different confer-ences. On October the 2nd Samvel Manukyan presented the company at a conference titled as “Migration Psychology: Mi-grant’s Life with a Lowered Social Status” organized by “Public Progress” civil initiative. During his pre-sentation Samvel Manuky-an highlighted the 2 key directions that the state should undertake. The first and the most significant step that should be under-taken is the strengthening of the economy in a multi-

branched way, requiring a lot of time and enormous efforts from the state. The second essential issue is to elaborate a state controlled information spreading policy and culture as today the information flow makes the population have con-troversial perception about abroad life conditions.On October the 29th Samvel Manukyan presented “The factors on Migration Man-agement” on a conference organized by the Public Network-National Assembly NGO Cooperation. Two days later Samvel partici-pated in the press-confer-ence where he gave the brief content of the presen-tation to the journalists.

GOVERNMENT SATISFACTION INDEX

Government Satisfaction Index is conducted four times a year by IPSC — Institute for Po-

litical and Sociological Consulting. This autumn, the analysis on the topic of Armenia-Russia/Armenia-EU cooperation was included in the method. The results indicate that among the interviewed population Russia is associated with many work places abroad, while EU countries are linked to the high quality of life, democracy and human rights protection. Most preferable countries to move are Russia (32,5%), France (8,9%), Germany (4,7%) and USA (7,6%). 29,6% of the interviewed population don’t want to leave the country. The desire to move to the Russian Federation is based on the ability to find jobs and opportunity to reunite with the relatives. European Union is attractive for those who prefer the rule of law. On the assumption of prorussian and proeuropean index results it can be claimed that the majority of population namely is prorussian (62,7%). Customs Union or European Union? 57,1% of the interviewed thinks that Armenia will keep its sovereignty

after joining the Customs Union. This point of view is not correlated with being prorussian or proeuropean. There is also a correlation between knowledge of Russian language and being prorussian. Interestingly when it comes to other languages no correlation is found. Thus good knowledge of English is not connected with having proeuropean positon. Questions about currency were also included in the meth-od. 44,7% of the interviewed choose ruble over dram (22,8%), correspondingly euro (15%) and dollar (10%). Both those who prefer ruble and dram think that Russia is the best partner for Armenia. No correlation with the proeuropean position was found for those who choose euro or dollar. Overall the interviewed population is more satisfied with the quality of life, than the situation of economics and democracy in the country. The stronger is proeuropean position the higher is dissatisfaction with the democratic situation among the interviewed. 40% of the people interviewed during this method believe that situation in the country will improve.

ARMENIAN-HUNGARIAN WORKSHOP

On October the 13th IPSC hosted a workshop on Armenia's past and

present organized by ArmSocClub and Peter Pazman University. Participants came from Hungary and Armenia. IPSC employees also took part in the work-shop. The first presentation was made by IPSC Research Analyst PHD in Sociol-ogy Samvel Manukyan and was referred to migration in Armenia. The results of the “Quality of Life Index” survey were used in the presentation. Samvel Ma-nukyan’s amazing slideshow with graphs and diagrams helped participants to better understand the migration issues in Armenia. After a 15 minutes break Political analyst, the Founding Director of the Regional Studies Center (RSC) Richard Giragosian introduced a lecture on Armenia's Political Crisis. The par-ticipants were so much involved in the lecture that they didn't want it to come to an end. Mr. Giragosian answered a lot of questions during the Q&A session and covered all the topics about the main problems in Armenia in this short period of time.The last presentation was made by Ministry of Culture Senior Researcher Harutyun Khudanyan. It was dedicated to Armenia's Ancient History. Mr. Khudan-yan introduced a beautiful slideshow with a lot of photographs of ancient Armenian facilities and monuments.Even after 6 hours of the workshop participants and lecturers didn’t want to separate and decided to meet again.

PUBLIC LECTURE BY TILMAN ALLERT

A public lecture titled “So-ciological look on Arme-

nia from abroad” was orga-nized by IPSC — Institute for Political and Sociological Consulting, at American Uni-versity of Armenia Business Center on October the 9th.Dr. Tilman Allert, profes-sor of sociology and social psychology at J. W. Goethe University, Frankfurt on Main, Germany introduced his sociological view both on Armenia, and on the whole region. Dr. Allert mentioned important features of Arme-nian nation: transit identity, eternal desire to find the Holy Land, the land of milk

and honey, confidence in being chosen and proud-ness for being a victim. He also compared Armenians to Jews referring to our nation as “Jews of Caucasus”.IPSC employees, students from Yerevan State and Russian-Armenian universi-ties and all those interested attended the lecture. After the speech there was a question-answer session. And even when the lec-ture was officially over the guests did not leave the hall and continued discussing in-teresting topics with Profes-sor Allert.

JEWS OF CAUCASUS

Professor Tilman Allert has continuously been contributing to the development of

sociological network in Armenia, as well as in other South Caucasus countries. He is the winner of year 2010 IPSC Award.

- Professor, please tell us about your first visit to Armenia. What were your first impressions?

- I first came to the region in the year 1999. I was invited by Goethe Institute of Geor-gia and worked for that institute, did several lectures for DAAD in Georgia and Armenia. Now I’m periodically visiting these two countries. I’ve been in Azerbaijan once. I wanted to understand the specifics of Caucasian countries’ develop-ment after the Soviet era. I didn’t like the simple adaptation of society models made by my West-ern colleagues and decided to find more histori-cally oriented understanding of the Caucasian situation. Also, I have been a follower of famous German sociologist and philosopher Max Weber, whose field of interest was sociology of religion, so I decided to explore the only religion in the world that Weber didn’t approach – Orthodox Christianity. This was another motivation for me to visit Georgia and Armenia. Another reason was the interesting fact that the emergence of political autonomy here had brought about a fascinating integration of people who were not professional politicians into the political field. The most outstanding example of this for me is Zviad Gamsakhurdia, the first Georgian president, who was more of an anthroposophy and literature oriented man. Max Weber would call these non-professional politicians “café intelligentsia”. And of course it was interesting to compare the three Caucasian countries. The combination of these factors challenged me in my sociological think-ing. These were the reasons I was profession-ally interested in the region. But there was also a personal motive: my father had Persian roots, he had lived in southern Baku, moved to Georgia and then Vladikavkaz, finally had to leave the

region to study medicine at a Western university.

- This is a typical immigrant story. In that sense you have something in common with many Armenian people.

- In a way I do. In Soviet Russia Bolsheviks changed my father’s name to Aliev, in Germany Nazis changed it into Allert. So I have an abso-lutely artificial name concocted by two dictator-ships of the last century. When I tell this story in Armenia people all around tell me I’m an Arme-nian, in Georgia they say I’m a Georgian and the same happens in Azerbaijan.

- Yes, we compete in everything. Speak-ing of that: what differences and similarities do you observe among the Caucasian coun-tries?

- I’ve always called Armenia the Jewish community of the Caucasus and even the Jew-ish community of the East. It’s not just about the historical similarities: Armenians are extremely sophisticated intellectually; in the Soviet Union they formed a huge part of the intellectual elite. Of course, Georgia also has its intelligentsia, but in my view and experience it’s much more “café house”: less sophisticated, more romanti-cally oriented. Armenians are more flexible. Even linguistically, Armenians are much more com-petent in foreign languages, ready to adopt new and foreign thinking. Both countries are in con-stant competition for being more Western, closer to Europe. Armenian orientation is much more complicated and ambivalent. In my view, by the way, President Sargsyan’s decision on joining the Eurasian Union is not catastrophic at all. There have been many changes in Georgia recently. Nowadays we see a more loyal attitude towards Russia there. This is natural: Russia is the most important neighbour, the strongest one.

- Armenians are travelling to Georgia a lot, especially to Tbilisi. Many of them admit that Georgia is more Western. It’s not about the languages they speak but about the de-sire to become a developed country, about changes in people’s mentality.

- I think a superficial modernization is tak-ing place in Georgia, superficial development. There are things one can see in the streets: new buildings, bridges, etc. In my opinion it’s sort of an aesthetic modernisation that carries a high price of leaving aside the traditions of the coun-try. One could argue that these are the typical steps of any development but to me it’s not admirable. For example, look at what’s going on with old Tbilisi! It’s crazy how the old structure of the city is being ruined. Perhaps something similar happens in Armenia. I think there has to be a more subtle historically oriented way for modernization, Modernization is certainly an ob-ligation of the political elite, otherwise people will emigrate. Everything has to be worked out, but I don’t see a formed conception of what should be in the focus of Caucasian development. Prob-

ably there is a possibility at least to compare one country to another and be more traditional oriented than just implement western techniques. To stop that “We’ll do it like Germany, France or Italy” movement and perhaps that will lead to the right course.

- Professor, you compare Armenians to the Jews. During the public lecture you spoke about similarities like being chosen, being a victim and the concept of holy land that both nations have. For the Jews it has already been found, it is Israel. Armenians seek bet-ter life abroad. What about Western Arme-nia? Is this our holy land?

- To some extent it is. The difference is that at the same time Armenians have both a concept of the holy land and an existing country. More-over, they look for their land of milk and honey in every part of the world.

- Speaking about competition between countries and nations: don’t we compete with the Jews? There is not just the competition for being the most intelligent nation, but also for being the number one victim. Jewish state doesn’t recognize Armenian Genocide, which is surprising given that they suffered a similar tragedy. Who, if not them, could understand us?

- This is psychological. There is a trauma, a persistent trauma, otherwise you wouldn’t talk about it so much. This has affected you through generations. It was transported from one gen-eration to the next. In this case, the trauma transforms into an aspect of an identity, a mark, which paradoxically becomes an element of pride. There’s a challenge here for the political elite, the teachers and the parents not to forget it but to disconnect the victimhood and the pride. Until this is done, Armenians, in communication with others, will have the tendency to demand: “Please, confirm my demand for justice and only then will we cooperate”.

- The topic of the public lecture orga-

nized by IPSC was “Sociological look on Armenia from abroad”. How will Armenia be seen from abroad in several years?

- It depends on the internal ef-forts of the political elite to improve the life conditions, including the life choic-es for the generations to come. It sou

Professor Tilman Allert’s public lecture in Yerevan