New structures, old foundations: state capacities for peace Hratch Tchilingirian (2005) Armenia and Azerbaijan’s democratic deficits cannot be attributed to the Nagorny Karabakh problem, but are worthy of consideration because states endowed with popular mandates and substantive democracy are more likely to provide long-term solutions to conflicts. For solutions Tchilingirian looks beyond ‘political will’ and a ‘sellable agreement’, seeking a better understanding of leadership and structural capacity. He addresses the problems of ‘charismatic authority’ in countries with weak institutions like Armenia and Azerbaijan, and describes the way the ‘Karabakh factor’ has played out in Armenian politics to restrict credible alternatives for the peace process. In both countries Soviet legacies and the personalization of politics have led to extreme forms of ‘othering,’ with dire sociological consequences for conflict resolution.
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